KARACHI, Sept 10: The city on Saturday suffered widespread and prolonged power outage following rains in the day, exposing the fragile KESC transmission and distribution system, causing huge economic loss, water shortage and inconvenience to the people.
Immediately after the rains began at 8.30am, the Karachi Electric Supply Corporation transmission and distribution system broke down, resulting in power breakdowns and shutdowns which continued in many areas till late in the night.
While Karachiites endured prolonged power outages, the utility blamed nature, the FWO, PTCL and other agencies for damaging its facilities and causing power breakdowns.
There was a general complaint by scores of consumers that KESC staff was not giving any satisfactory reply as to when power supply would be restored.
In areas where power supply has been partially restored, the general complaint was of low voltage which damaged electrical appliances.
People, in general, and industrial consumers, in particular, blamed the utility for gross negligence and deceiving people to cover up its lack of proper investment in improving the transmission and distribution facilities.
Although the KESC claimed it had restored power supply to most of the affected areas, many residents, complained that they were without power since morning and in many areas their telephone calls to complaint centres were not being properly responded.
According to a KESC spokesman, despite the downpour, power supply to major parts of the city remained normal. However, due to aging, the coastal area high tension KCR circuit tripped, causing power interruption to southern part of the city in the morning, which the spokesman claimed, was activated by 11.30 am.
The 132 KV lines from Malir, Korangi, Baloch and Baldia grids also tripped but the KESC claimed the power supply was soon restored.
The utility claimed its engineers had to face major difficulty in restoring power supply to parts of Clifton blocks 3, 5, 7, 8, 9 and Boating Basin as one of the FWO excavator working on the Schon Circle underpass damaged a major overhead high tension line by hitting and uprooting a pole and tilting the adjoining poles which had tangled the lines, causing damage to the transformer supplying power from Clifton Grid.
The KESC claimed that feeder tripping remained under control and under 50 feeders, out of 900, discontinued power supply at any given time during the rain.
Trippings occurred in the areas where digging was carried out either due to road construction, or PTCL workers allegedly damaged cables which caused short- circuit due to rainwater.
According to SITE association chairman, Mirza Ikhtiar Baig, who is also on the KESC board of director, despite the utility’s claim of having a rain contingency plan, there was no evidence of that on Saturday as losses to industries in SITE could have been more that 120 million rupees.
He said that out of 59 feeders, 26 were shut down and the KESC was simply not in a position to activate them.
Mr Imtiazul Huda, general secretary, Concerned Citizens, complained that the entire North Karachi, Buffer Zone was without power since 8.30am, and the centres were not responding on phone. He identified the most affected areas as 11-C 1, 2, 3,7-D 1,2,3,4 and Sector 8, 9, 10.
He said that the army in the KESC had failed to control the transmission and distribution losses which have risen to 40 per cent of the total electric power handled by the power utility.
An elderly resident of Block 2 Clifton said that the KESC was not responding to his complaint of power breakdown. “I am a sick man and cannot endure there lies for long. Every time when it rains or it is very hot, they come up with excuses of blaming other utilities”.
A knowledgeable person told Dawn that had the KESC put cables according to standard procedure and proper insulation and covered them with specified tiles, the cables would not have been damaged by the diggers.
As the KESC passed on the blames, consumers were still in the dark and many clinics and other essential services were facing difficulty in performing their duty.
