KARACHI: Karachiites suffer more electricity breakdowns
By Arman Sabir
KARACHI, April 25: A major portion of the city was deprived of the electricity supply on Tuesday after one of the main circuits of the power utility near Bin Qasim Thermal Power Station tripped.
One of the two circuits of 220 kilovolts tripped at around 8am suspending the supply to 14 grid stations i.e., Baldia, Clifton, Elander Road, Gizri, Lyari, Mauripur, North Karachi, Old Town, Orangi Town, Queens Road, Lalazar, SITE, Valika and West Wharf.
The circuit was made functional at 8:35pm but it again tripped at 9pm plunging all the areas into darkness. KESC staff and engineers started the repair work but all the areas could not be energised till late night. The affected areas were provided power supply for a brief period and the power utility resorted to prolong power loadshedding.
The electricity supply to the commercial hub of the city on I.I. Chundrigar Road and in Saddar was suspended at the time when offices were about to start functioning. The power supply to the KESC headquarters and other consumer offices remained off for hours. Many areas including Clifton, Defence Housing Authority, old city area, Jubilee, Ranchhor Lines, and port areas were affected owing to the tripping. Many surgical operations in various hospitals were delayed while many people were trapped in elevators in multi-storey buildings after the power failures.
The most affected were the residents of Clifton and Defence where the power supply played hide-and-seek all the day.
An angry consumer from Clifton’s Block-2, Ghulam Ali, said that his locality was deprived of power supply for nine times a day. He said that the power utility did not care for its consumers and they seemed indifferent with the problems of people.
An irate consumer from Block-9 in Clifton, Sadia Aziz, said that the power loadshedding for three hours was carried out many times throughout the day disturbing the studies of schoolchildren preparing for their annual exams. Referring to the Hubco-Baldia link, she said it was not the time to carry out the work and suspend power supply for many hours when children were preparing for their exams.
A furious consumer from DHA Phase VI, Mrs Naheed, said that a fortnight back electrical appliances of her house were burnt and the power utility was not ready to bear the damages. The residents suffered prolong power failures in the whole month of March and now in April the power breakdowns situation became worse. She said that since 5am to 10pm, the power was supplied hardly two to three hours to her locality. What would happen to children preparing for exams and patients at homes in the absence of power in the hot weather, she said and asked the KESC authorities to solve the problem and make it public.
Dr Adnan Yunus from Block-8 in Clifton, Nafeesul Hasan from DHA Phase VI and Sohail Sarwar from Phase VII said that they had suffered intermittent power failures in their localities all the day and the power supply was again disrupted at night. Mr Sarwar said that the light went off at around 6:30am and it was restored at around 4:30pm after 10 hours. Another consumer from Phase VIII told Dawn that his locality was without electricity all the day from 8am and it was not restored till late in night.
Consumers from North Nazimabad, Nazimabad, Gulistan-i-Jauhar, Jamshed Quarters and other areas also complained about power failures in their respective localities.
It was one after the other setback suffered by the power utility during the past two months causing nuisance to consumers who were forced to suffer intermittent and prolong power failures. The power generating units developed faults three times within a fortnight.
Spokesman for the power utility said that the main circuit carrying 220KV from the KCR grid adjacent to the Bin Qasim Thermal Power Station tripped in the morning causing suspension of the power supply to 14 grids connected to the main circuit. As the KDA-Baldia circuit was switched off due to the work on linking the Hubco and Baldia circuit, the power was being supplied to Baldia from Clifton grid resultantly the tripping of the circuit had affected the power supply to Baldia grid, he said and added that the alternative arrangement had caused overloading to the main circuit which tripped. The work on Hubco-Baldia was expected to be completed by May 7, he said.
However, he said that the engineers and the staff of the power utility managed to make the circuit operational by 8:35pm on Tuesday. After the restoration of power supply to the link, the loadshedding was abandoned.
Regretting the inconvenience caused to the consumers, he said that the KESC repaired the 132KV high tension underground cable, which was damaged on Sunday, and made it operational restoring power supply to Mauripur and Lyari where people were without electricity.
KARACHI, April 25: A major portion of the city was deprived of the electricity supply on Tuesday after one of the main circuits of the power utility near Bin Qasim Thermal Power Station tripped.
