KARACHI, July 4: The fragile and weak transmission and distribution network of the Karachi Electricity Supply Corporation continued to develop faults and suffer tripping on Tuesday, forcing citizens to brave the hot and humid weather conditions without fans and air-conditioners.

Many people criticised the KESC bosses for the explanations they had given at their joint press conference on Monday. Some of them said that the new management’s failure to provide immediate relief to power consumers reflected its incompetence.

The new management did not know how to deal with the situation and what could be the possible options for containing the intensity and long duration of power failures, they added.

People living in the vicinity of Sobhraj Hospital in old area said that a power sub-station caught fire and resultantly stopped power supply to the whole locality for several hours. However, chief of the Fire Brigade Kazim Ali said that the fire had actually broken out in a pole-mounted transformer (PMT) and was extinguished by fire-fighters.

A spokesman for the KESC expressed the view that the fire might have been caused by overloading. He said that tripping had also taken place thrice between 3pm and 4:30pm due to the low frequency on the national grid. He said that the KESC applied a 90-minute load-shedding across the city on a group-wise rotation basis to meet the shortfall of 120 megawatts.

People in general said that frequent interruption in power supply continued to in their localities despite the assurances given by president, prime minister and the federal minister for power.

An infuriated consumer from Nazimabad No.4, Mr Farooq said that the power supply would be suspended for two to three hours a day before President Pervez Musharraf took notice of the situation, but after his intervention, the frequency had increased and now the power failures were occurring four to five times a day and also with a longer duration, i.e. more than two hours.

An irate consumer from

Gulshan-i-Iqbal Block-5, Mr

Ehtesham said that the frequent power disruption was a routine in his locality. On Tuesday, power went off at around 6pm on Tuesday and was not restored till late in the night. He argued that now when the KESC management had expressed its inability to improve the situation in near future, the government should take over the utility again.

A resident of Korangi Crossing, Mr Naseer, said that power supply to his locality was suspended at 8am for one hour and at 3pm for another hour. He said that the power failures had become a routine and nothing was being done to improve the situation.

An angry citizen, Mr Moin from Gulistan-i-Jauhar, Block-18, said power supply played hide-and-seek the previous night. Two to four-hour load-shedding was also carried out during the day. “We could not use air-conditioner and refrigerator because of the low voltage and fluctuation and had to spend a sleepless night owing to the disrupted supply,” he added.

A resident of Rado Centre, Gulistan-i-Jauhar, said that the power supply was suspended at around 1pm to 5pm though during this period, it was restored for 10 minutes at 3pm. He also complained of voltage fluctuation, saying that it posed a constant threat to the expensive and essential electrical appliances at home.

A dweller, Mr Kashif, from North Karachi said that the already unbearable load-shedding of six-hour duration had now been extended by another five hours. Despite the regular load-shedding for many hours every day, the meter would show not even a slight reduction in consumption, he wondered.