KARACHI, July 13: Power supply to a major portion of the city remained suspended on Thursday owing to disruption in supply from Hubco for Baldia grid.
The cause of disruption could not be known, and citizens in various areas, including Baldia Town, parts of SITE, Liaquatabad, Nazimabad, North Nazimabad, North Karachi, Federal B Area, Gulshan-i-Iqbal, Gulistan-i-Jauhar, Malir and Surjani, remained without power for hours.
However, a spokesman for the Karachi Electricity Supply Corporation, without citing any reasons, said the supply from Hubco was disrupted around 6:55pm and it remained shut for 45 minutes. Due to disruption in the supply, nine grid stations -- KDA, Baldia, Walika, Malir, Gulistan-i-Jauhar, Liaquatabad, Federal B Area, Civic Centre, and Surjani Town -- were affected.
The Hubco-Baldia link was restored at 7:40pm and supply to all the affected grids was restored accordingly, he said, adding the overall situation in the city is under control and the demand ranged between 2,000 and 2,100 MWs which was met accordingly as KESC had been receiving up to 700 MWs from Wapda.
He said no load-shedding was resorted, apart from shutdowns in some areas where development work was being undertaken. He claimed that complaints about localized faults also decreased since the KESC abandoned power load shedding.
There were complaints about a power breakdown in various localities for an hour in the evening, but in some areas, including Liaquatabad, Nazimabad, and Surjani Town, people said the span of power failure was more than two hours.
Besides, people living in Clifton said the KESC had been receiving the required power, but there was no respite from power failures.
They said the power supply was switched off for four hours on Wednesday and it remained disturbed on Thursday also.
A resident of Khawaja Ajmer Nagri said power supply remains suspended for four to six hours daily and there is no improvement despite the fact that the KESC was supplied with addition power by Wapda.
There was no power between 2.30am and 5.30am and again around midday, said Khalid Omar from Korangi Crossing. There were reports of power failures at the same time at Altaf Town, Darussalam Housing Society, and Ibrahim Hyderi.
A resident of Metroville-III adjacent to Gulshan-i-Iqbal said supply continuously played a hide-and-seek all the day on Thursday and during the presence of power, fluctuations posed a constant threat to electrical appliances.
Muzaffar from Block 4-A, Gulshan-i-Iqbal said the intermittent suspension in power supply continued unabated and the additional power from Wapda could not serve consumers as distribution system of the KESC was defected and could not bear load.
