KARACHI, July 4: Power failures continued to occur on Thursday as the Karachi Electric Supply Corporation failed to provide uninterrupted power supply to its customers.

KESC sources told Dawn that while fewer power breakdowns had taken place on Wednesday, a large number of localities had been without electricity for long hours on Thursday.

The areas hit by power breakdowns on Thursday included Federal B. Area, Gulistan-i-Jauhar, Pir Illahi Bakhsh Colony, Nazimabad, Hyderabad Colony, Korangi, North Nazimabad, PECHS, Garden East, Gulshan-i-Iqbal, Kharadar and New Karachi.

Calling from Old Golimar, Qadimi Mohalla, Nawaz Ali said his locality had faced prolonged and intermittent power breakdowns for the past one week. “There is a pole-mounted transformer near Mama Murad Hotel which keeps on fluctuating every one hour. Because the pole-mounted transformer is very overloaded, it gets tripped very frequently. Somebody then switches it off with a long stick. When it has cooled down after a while, it is again switched on using the same stick.”

Mr Ali said that many times the area residents had asked the power utility to change the transformer but to no avail. “On Thursday, we lost our power supply shortly after the Fajar prayers. When I called the KESC complaint number at 2574271 some attendant said it was not the complaint centre’s job. He gave me the number of the KESC operations department, but their number — 6614185 — has been incessantly engaged.”

Another distressed KESC customer called from Federal B. Area, Block 14. He said that on Wednesday his locality had lost power supply at 10.30pm which had been restored at 12.45am. “When my daughter called 118 a girl telephone attendant said to her curtly that Federal B. Area had lost its power supply only ten minutes before. Then I told the girl that we had been without electricity for the past two hours. There seems to be no coordination between various departments of the KESC.”

He added that on Thursday his locality had lost power supply at around 7.45pm. “The telephone attendant at the KESC complaint centre mumbled something about a pole-mounted transformer without giving a plausible reason for the power breakdown.”

A resident called from Gulshan-i-Iqbal, Block 5, and said that his locality had been without electricity from 5.30pm to 8.30pm on Thursday.

Calling from Mohammad Ali Society, a resident said his locality had lost power supply early in the morning. “I was extremely sleepy but I dragged myself from the bed and made a phone call to 118. A girl telephone attendant answered the phone and said that because Federal B. Area was being normalized, Mohammad Ali Society was being ‘dumped’. I failed to understand what she had said and asked her to explain. She said that many blocks of Federal B. Area had been without electricity the previous night. That was why they were being normalized at the expense of electricity to our area. Her explanation is still beyond me.”