KARACHI: Power failures continue to irritate citizens
By Our Staff Reporter
KARACHI, June 19: Many areas of the city, especially Federal B Area, remained in the grip of prolonged power breakdowns, while the Karachi Electric Supply Corporation did not bother to explain to its consumers, why faults occur every day.
A resident of Federal B Area, Block 13, said his locality had been without electricity for the past 28 hours. “If the army officials running the KESC have any honour left, they should resign and go back to the barracks where they belong. They have ruined the power utility. I made so many calls to my regional complaint centre and every time I call them they say that they have sent their team and the power fault would be removed in half an hour. This has been going on for the past 28 hours,” he said.
A resident from the same locality, Arif Kazmi, called to say that apparently the power fault in his locality had been because of a snapped cable or wire. “How long does it take to remove a snapped wire or a cable and replace it with a proper one? Even if they have been looking for the snapped cable, this should not have taken 28 hours.”
Calling from Federal B Area, Block 16, a resident said that his locality had been without electricity for the past four hours, adding that his regional complaint centre had failed to explain to him the cause of such a long power breakdown in the locality.
Calling from Federal B Area, Block 15, a resident said that his locality had been without electrical power since 1pm. “I have been informed that the power breakdown in my locality is because of some faulty cable. How long does it take to track down the faulty cable and replace it? If the KESC engineers cannot do such a small job in eight hours, they should resign and find themselves another job.”
Calling from Gulshan-i-Iqbal, Block 4-A, which is also called Journalists’ Society, a resident said that a wire in his locality had snapped when a dust storm hit the city on Wednesday evening. “Since then, so many complaints have been lodged with the KESC but to no avail. It shows that the KESC is such an inefficient organization that it cannot fix a snapped wire in more than 24 hours.”
Askari Hussain called Dawn from North Nazimabad, Block L, to say that while it rained on Wednesday for barely five minutes in his locality, the ensuing power breakdown had lasted four and a half hours, late into the night. “When I called my complaint centre, the staff on duty said that the first rain of a season always causes widespread power breakdowns. Since there are long intervals between rains in the city, it looks that every rain is going to be the first rain of the season in the city.”
Sources working in the centralized complaint centre of the KESC, better known as 118, said that complaints regarding power failure had been received from Nazimabad, Gulshan-i-Iqbal, North Nazimabad, Korangi, North Karachi, Abyssinia Line, Gulistan-i- Jauhar, New Karachi and Saddar.
METERS: Residents of the Shah Faisal Colony, Bareli Colony, said that many residents had protested against the KESC campaign of replacing old meters with new ones, which allegedly ran faster. “KESC teams came to our area to change the meters. They claimed that the new meters were perfect and showed one unit if one kilowatt load remained connected to these for an hour. When they tested the meters in front of us, the new meters connected to one kilowatt load showed one unit in about half an hour,” they said.
The residents said that theirs was a low-income locality in which people did not have many electronic and electric equipment. There was no reason for our meters to run fast, they added.
