KARACHI, June 16: The Karachi Electric Supply Corporation failed to exorcise the spectre of power breakdowns from the city on Sunday.

KESC consumers calling the Dawn office said that in most cases, explanations of power breakdowns offered by local complaint centres and 118 differed significantly.

Rafiq Hassan, a resident of Gulshan-i-Iqbal, Block 13D-2, Roofi Homes, told Dawn late on Sunday night that his locality faced the first power breakdown at 9.30pm the previous night. “Power supply was restored at eight on Sunday morning. The next power breakdown occurred at 1.30pm which lasted till 5pm. Three hours later, at 8pm, power supply once again deserted us and has still not returned.”

He said that the local complaint centre told him that the power shutdown was due to loadshedding. But the centralized complaint centre at 118 said that there was a cable fault in the area which would take at least three hours to be removed.

“When two KESC centres offer different explanations for a breakdown, their statements become suspected. A consumer should be forgiven for thinking that the KESC centres are being economical with the truth,” he said.

Another resident of the same area — Gulshan-i-Iqbal, Block 13D-2 — said that when she called her local complaint centre earlier in the day, a telephone attendant told her that power supply would be restored at around 3pm.

“After five or ten agonizing minutes, when my daughter called the same complaint centre as the heat and humidity was unbearable in the absence of electricity, the attendant told her that power supply would be restored at around 5pm. Why can’t they come out with the truth?” she wondered.

A very indignant caller from Gulshan-i-Iqbal, Block 13D-1, told Dawn that his locality had been without electricity for the past 15 hours.

“When I tried to lodge my complaint with 118, they said there was no need to do so as power supply would be restored in a short while. When I contacted the regional complaint centre, they did not give me my complaint number, saying that similar complaints had already been lodged. They did nothing to remove the fault or whatever it was, and we have been without electricity for the past 20 hours,” the caller said, relating his tale of anguish.

A resident of Federal B. Area, Block 17, told Dawn that his locality had faced a power breakdown at around ten the previous night. “Power supply was restored after almost three hours, but it remained unstable. The voltage kept fluctuating and we had to switch off our electronic appliances lest they be damaged by the vacillating voltage supply. It was, for all practical purposes, a power breakdown because we could not use any electrical appliance.”

A resident calling from Gulistan-i-Jauhar, Block 16, told Dawn that he faced a power shutdown at 11.50am which was restored at 4.30pm.

A resident of Gulzar-i-Hijri told Dawn that the previous night, the entire area had been without electricity for more than five hours.

A resident of North Nazimabad, Block I, told Dawn that her locality had been without electricity for more than three hours.

Another resident of the same block told Dawn that her locality had been without power since 3.30pm. “Even when power supply is restored, which is only for a little while, the voltage keeps fluctuating,” she added.