KARACHI, May 5: City's industrial areas have been facing massive production losses besides failing to meet the timely export shipments to various foreign destinations owing to frequent power breakdowns for the last one week.
Suspension of production for several hours is also adding miseries to the life of daily wagers who rely on daily production. Industrialists say that the long duration of power breakdown has also made the operation of stand-by generators unfeasible as the cost of running these generators for a longer duration is very high.
On Tuesday, more than 2,500 industrial units in Site area came to a halt for seven hours from 7 pm onwards, thus totally disrupting the production schedule and resulting in heavy losses due to loadshedding by the KESC.
Chairman SITE Association of Industry Muhammad Nisar Shekhani said that on inquiry it was found that the power breakdown had been necessitated due to the damage of 220 KV transmission conductors installed on supply line coming from Jamshoro. He recalled that the similar breakage had occurred a year back.
The quality of the conductors installed on the transmission line that transmits power of 220 KV to Karachi were of so poor quality that they could not sustain the load. "Is Wapda/KESC oblivious to the sufferings of the masses, closure of industries and economic losses to the country.
Why conductors that meet proper specifications are not installed and instead sub-standard ones are used. After all this repeated breakage is not a natural calamity or, for that matter, conductors are not of earthenware that get damaged regularly," he added.
Mr Shekhani said that the KESC had also issued notice on Wednesday that it would cut power supply from 7 pm till 12 mid night. He added the KESC was facing a shortfall of 500 MW, resulting in frequent power breakdowns in various residential localities and now it was targeting the industries.
He expressed his concern over providing sub-standard services to their consumers by Wapda/ KESC, particularly in Sindh region and especially in Karachi where more then 15,000 industries are working day and night, providing million of jobs and 49 per cent revenue of the budget to the country's exchequer.
He urged President Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali to take a serious note of the situation and direct the management of Wapda/KESC to improve their transmission and distribution system.
Chairman Korangi Association of Trade and Industry (KATI) Mian Zahid Hussain said that the worst sufferers of the loadshedding were small and medium-sized units, which cannot afford to buy costly power generators to run their units. Unfortunately, Korangi industrial area comprises 90 per cent of small and medium sized units.
He said the KESC had not provided any plan for loadshedding in the industrial area and there was virtually no specific timing of power breakdowns. According to an estimate, 1,200 units in Korangi industrial area suffer Rs200 million per hour in sales of goods and Rs20 million in terms of revenue to the government in case power goes off for an hour, Mr Zahid said.
"KESC has virtually failed to meet the power demand of the mega city," he said adding that even the Sui Southern Gas Company (SSGC) was not cooperating with the industrialists by refusing to provide gas for power generation system. He said that the SSGC was only providing gas for self-power generation purpose to only 100 per cent export-oriented industries.
He said none of the three shifts were running on full-fledged basis these days, thus causing hardships for daily-wagers who could not earn their livelihood due to suspension of production.
A spokesman of North Karachi Association of Trade and Industry (NKATI) said that six to eight hours power breakdown has become a daily routine in the industrial area.
He said that the KESC officials did not give the real facts behind frequent power breakdowns. He added that a work force of 50,000-60,000 persons earn their livelihood from a single shift in over 2,500 small and medium-sized units.
He added that industries were experiencing production losses and shipments to foreign destinations were being delayed but the KESC was not really bothered about the situation.
