KARACHI, Aug 11: Although the KESC claimed that no major power breakdown occurred on Wednesday, people in a number of city localities claimed that the KESC resorted to unannounced load shedding.

Complaints of power breakdowns were received from Gulshan-i-Iqbal, Federal B Area, Saddar, Gulistan-i-Jauhar, Malir, PECHS, Defence, Clifton, North Karachi, North Nazimabad and Orangi Town.

People said that as KESC failed to provide uninterrupted power supply to them, the complaint centres were unable to tell them when electricity faults would be repaired and supply restored.

In Gulistan-i-Jauhar, Block 17, area people said their locality experienced many brief power breakdowns on Wednesday ranging from 15 minutes to 25 minutes. A resident of Garden East, Tufail Ahmed, called Dawn at 8pm to say that his locality had been without electricity since 11am.

"Apparently, Garden East has been divided into five KESC zones. When we call one centre, they say that our locality falls under another zone. We have not been able to figure out in which zone we are. But the bottom line is that our locality has been without electricity for the past nine hours," he said.

A resident of Gulshan-i-Iqbal, Block 4, said his locality experienced a power shutdown between 4pm and 6.30pm. Another resident of Gulshan-i-Iqbal, Block 14, said his locality experienced a recurring fault of breakdown of one of the three phases.

A KESC spokesman said no major power breakdown occurred on Wednesday, adding that the KESC complaint centres attended to complaints as soon as they were received. He said that Garden East was facing a power shutdown which had been announced in advance. He added that while power supply was supposed to be restored at 6pm, because of some repair work, it would be restored a couple of hours later.