KARACHI: Unannounced shutdowns go on with loadshedding
By Bhagwandas
KARACHI, Aug 9: The KESC continued to carry out unannounced shutdowns besides its regular one-hour loadshedding on Wednesday and people continued to call newspaper offices to highlight their hardships.
A majority of the callers said they had been calling KESC service centres in their localities but the telephones remained busy throughout the day suggesting that either the staff had kept the phones off the hook or the number of callers was so high that the phones remained busy continuously.
A large number of people said they experienced shutdowns or loadshedding spells two to three times with the at6 least one of the disruptions of 90 minutes to two hours.
The callers said that when the electricity supply was on, for most of the time it fluctuated damaging many expensive electrical appliances.
Rahimuddin, calling from Gulistan-i-Jauher, Block 17, said his area was without power supply from 5pm to 8pm while earlier during the day it had faced three spells of shutdown of 15 to 20 minutes each.
A caller from Raja Tanweer Colony in Orangi Town, Sajjad Ahmad, said his area faced a two-hour-long power breakdown at 6pm on Tuesday evening and then again the supply remained suspended from 11am to 1pm on Wednesday.
Madiha Siddiqui from Block 12, Gulberg, Federal B Area, said her area was without power supply from 7pm to 9pm on Tuesday and from 1am to 3am and 5am to 6am on Wednesday.
Faisal Ahmad Ranchhore Lane said his area was without power supply from 9am till 8pm, during which the supply was restored three or four times for 10 to 15 minutes each.
A housewife, Tasleem Anis of Mithadar, said electricity supply to her area remained suspended from 4am to 8am on Wednesday in addition to several disruptions of 10 to 15 minutes each. She said that rainwater was stagnating in her area as the shutdowns and fluctuation had affected the drainage pumps’ operation.
Adeel Hassan, calling from DHA, Phave IV, said that his area was without power from 9am to 10.30am and then from 2pm to 4pm.
Complaints were also recieved from Bahadurabad, Nazimabad, Block 3, Korangi and Mithadar.
A resident of Block 4, Clifton, complained that her area did not have power supply for 30 hours at a stretch during the last week. “That was attributed to the rain. But now when there is no rain, the supply still goes off,” said Ms Qudsia Khan.
Meanwhile, a KESC spokesperson said the power demand of the city was 2,000 megawatts and supply remained at 1,900MW, leaving a shortfall of 100MW, that was met by an hour-long loadshedding during the peak hours. He said work on the 66kv Baldia/Gadap line circuit was in progress. The gas supply remained 70 per cent less than normal and Bin Qasim unit was also closed for maintenance.
He also presented a graph which showed that though the city was facing power shortage, the KESC could not supply electricity that was available with it. The largest amount of the `un-served energy’ was on July 31, when over 14,000MWH power was available with the KESC but could not be supplied to consumers due to `different reasons’.
