KARACHI, July 5: Many areas of the city suffered prolonged power breakdowns on Saturday. In some localities the maintenance shutdown announced by the Karachi Electric Supply Corporation continued longer than scheduled.

While no official word was available to justify the power breakdowns, sources working in various complaint centres of the KESC told Dawn that they had received complaints from Federal B Area, Gulistan-i-Jauhar, Lyari, Kharadar, Sharafabad, Sindhi Muslim Society, PECHS, North Nazimabad, Korangi, and Gulshan-i- Iqbal, mostly in the early hours of Saturday.

The KESC failed to explain the reasons behind delay in maintenance work. Analysts point out that KESC engineers can easily work out the time required to shut off a localized section of the transmission and distribution system and repair it. They add that if the power utility strictly observed timings for maintenance shutdowns, it would be very convenient for the KESC consumers.

Calling from Liaquatabad No 7, a resident said that in his locality the maintenance was supposed to come to an end around noon. “The power supply was not restored till afternoon. I called my regional complaint centre and learnt that a KESC team was working on some transformer which supplied electricity to our locality. I was also told that the power shutdown had been announced in the press. After the expiry of the deadline, I called the centralized complaint centre and the telephone attendant said that there was an ‘HT fault’ in the area which was being fixed. Either the regional complaint centre was being economical with the truth or the localized complaint centre was lying.”

A consumer called from Orangi Town, sector 11.5, to say that like Friday his locality had faced a prolonged power breakdown on Saturday. “It has been observed that in our locality once a fault develops, it recurs. The KESC teams that come to our locality to fix the fault do not take long-term measures. They work on ad-hoc basis. Even when they know that the jumper they have fixed will collapse in a day or two, they do not bother to return and replace it with a better one. Quite often, the same fault keeps recurring for weeks.”

A resident of the PECHS, Block 2, informed Dawn that his locality faced power shutdowns at least three times a day.

A resident of North Nazimabad, said that when he tried to lodge a complaint he was told that his complaint would be dealt with only when the KESC vehicle of the centre wouldreturn. The resident added that the vehicle returned after three hours.