KARACHI, April 24: While the Karachi Electric Supply Corporation remained tight-lipped about the cause of power breakdowns, the city experienced more electric shutdowns on Thursday despite the fact that mercury fell to 32.5 degrees Centigrade from Wednesday’s 35 degrees Centigrade.
The University of Karachi bore the brunt of the power breakdown as it remained without electricity from 9.30 in the morning till 6 in the evening. Both the academic and residential blocks remained without electricity.
Sources working in the KESC’s centralized complaint centre, better known as 118, told Dawn that they had received complaints of power breakdowns from Federal B Area, Malir Cant, Soldier Bazaar 1, North Karachi, Kharadar, Buffer Zone, North Nazimabad and Saddar.
Calling from Soldier Bazaar 1, Sir Shah Nawaz Road, a highly indignant consumer said that he was extremely upset about daily power breakdowns which occurred in the evening. “There is a set pattern under which our locality loses its power supply in the evening. If the KESC is carrying out loadshedding in our locality, it must come out with the truth,” he demanded. He added that he had even lodged a complaint and the complaint number was AS-16.
Calling from Federal B Area, a consumer said that the previous night his locality had experienced a six-hour-long power breakdown.
“The KESC information centre seems to take delight in keeping its consumers on the tenterhooks. We lost our power supply around midnight. When we lodged a complaint at 118 we were told that a cable fault was responsible for the power breakdown which would be fixed in a little while. When we called after a couple of hours, we were again informed that the fixing of the fault would apparently take long and our power supply would be restored in the morning.
“Our power supply was restored at 6.30 in the morning. Why do the KESC engineers take more than six hours to fix a cable fault? Do they lack training or do they not have equipment? Or, as one should be excused for concluding, they remain work-shy at night?” he wondered.
Another consumer from Federal B Area, Block 16, said that his locality had been without electricity from 11.15pm to 4am the previous night. “Such night-long power breakdowns are particularly annoying, for they rob us of peaceful sleep, thus making us edgy and petulant for the whole day,” he observed.
A resident of Malir Cant complained that his locality had remained without electricity for about three hours. A shopkeeper from Raja Ghazanfer Ali Khan Road called to express his resentment over the manner in which his market was deprived of electricity during the business hours.
“Our shops are stuffy and crowded. We have fixed a number of fans in our shops, in some cases even air-conditioners, so that our valued customers, on whom depends our business, feel pleasant while they are in our shops. Without electricity, a large number of customers feel too hot in the shop to stay there for more than a couple of minutes. This naturally adversely affects our business.”
A consumer from North Karachi, Sector 11-A, said that the KESC carrying out loadshedding in his area because his locality lost power supply every day without fail for a couple of hours. “These power breakdowns cannot be because of technical faults. If they do, then KESC engineers should be taken to task for keeping the transmission and distribution system in such poor condition,” he noted.
Karachi University’s power breakdown lasted from 9.30 in the morning till six in the evening.
According to senior faculty members, there was no electricity at the teaching departments from 10am till in the evening. They said that this hampered the teaching as well as lab and research work at the campus.
It was stated that because of the power outage, the refrigerators could not function and many of the chemical reagents were spoiled.
A senior faculty member said that the university had imported 15 generators, but they were still lying at the port for the necessary formalities had not been completed.
The faculty member said the customs department was insistent duty would have to be realized on the generators as, according to the department, they were not instruments.
He added that in the absence of such generators research work was suffering because of frequent power breakdowns.
