KARACHI, July 10: Residents of North Karachi suffered a prolonged power shutdown as a high-tension wire snapped suspending power supply to various localities. KESC officials said that a 220KV wire, carrying electricity from KDA to North Karachi grid, snapped at 4pm and is being repaired.
A resident of Sector 11-H said the power supply was disrupted to his locality at 10:45am and was not restored after a lapse of 12 hours.
A KESC spokesman said the Water and Power Development Authority (Wapda) had started supplying 750MW power to KESC. The additional power supply and drop in the temperature enabled the KESC to meet the demand of 2,100 MW and there was no load shedding on Monday. He said the engineers and staff of the power utility were at work to repair the fault, developed in North Karachi, and by midnight, the supply would be restored in affected areas.
Besides, he said the power utility began on Monday a major improvement work to reduce overloading and providing stable power supply.
The development work would improve supply to areas being served by the grid stations of North Karachi, Valika, Orangi, and Federal-A Area. Sixty-eight power supply feeders serve electricity to consumers from these grids.
The KESC would resort to shutdown of four feeders, one from each grid station for one hour on rotational basis between July 10 and 15. He said a complete shutdown was carried out on Monday from 10am to 2pm on Valika, North Karachi, and North Nazimabad Grid Stations. Again, on July 15 when work will finish and the Grid Stations would be connected with the city network, shutdown from 10am to 2pm would be carried out in their service areas.
Despite the fact that the KESC has started receiving additional supply of up to 750MW from 550MW, and the power consumption demand has been reduced, the residents of various areas complained about power failures in their localities.
An irate consumer from Jamshed Quarters said intermittent suspensions in power supply continue unabated though the span of power failures has reduced.
Residents from Federal B Area in Block-15, 17, and 20 said the power supply was suspended at least thrice for an hour or more. They asked that after the weather has turned pleasant and power supply from Wapda has increased, why there were frequent disruptions in electricity supply.
The residents of North Nazimabad, Nazimabad, Liaquatabad, Soldier Bazaar, parts of Lyari, Defence Housing Authority, Clifton, and other areas also complained about power failures.
