KARACHI, Sept 4: Snapping of a high-tension line carrying electricity from Bin Qasim station rendered almost three-fourth of the city without power for many hours on Monday. The cable snapped at about 1pm and people from many areas reported that the supply could not been restored to their households till midnight.
The incident prompted the KESC to apply load-shedding in many areas in order to overcome the serious disruption in power supply. The load-shedding, spanning two to four hours, was carried out several a times between 1pm and midnight on a rotation basis.
A KESC spokesperson told Dawn said that work for the repair of the broken line, carrying 220,000 volts, had been started immediately and the load had been shifted to other circuits. He said that the gradual restoration of power supply to the affected areas had been started at around 4pm.
He said that the power supply had not stabilized till the evening owing to which load-shedding had to be carried out on a rotation basis. He hoped that the situation would noramlise some time in the night.
He said that, at present, there was not gap between the power supply and demand, indicating that the KESC was getting 2,000 megawatts as against almost the as much demand.
He, however, maintained that the problem was with the transmission system. He said that the areas being fed from the Hubco source remained unaffected.
Meanwhile, complaints of frequent and prolonged power breakdowns started pouring in at the newspaper offices in the evening. A large number of complainants strongly criticized KESC people for not attending telephones at the complaint centres.
Many others deplored that the ill-mannered staff attending the phones would not give them a proper reply.
A power consumer, Shahzeb Hassan, calling from Gulistan-i-Jauhar’s Block 17, said that his area was without power from 1pm to 2pm and again from 2.30pm to 8pm. Similar was situation in the blocks 12 and 16, he said.
A resident of Block 9, Clifton, said that his area was already experiencing an unannounced load-shedding of one hour every day, but more painful was the breakdown running into five hours or more that had hit the area for at least four times over the last two weeks. He said that every time a complaint was lodged, the KESC people maintained that the disruption was due to the repair work at the Gizri feeder.
A resident of Block 17, F B Area, Mohammad Rahim said that his area had remained without power for three hours in the afternoon before power supply discontinued again at 4.30 pm. It could not be restored even after four hours more, he said, adding that the situation in Block 20, where his relative lived, was the same.
Calling from Gulshan-i-Iqbal’s Block 16, Ali Ahsan Shah said that his area was without power from 2pm to 4pm and then from 5.30pm to 10pm.
Jamshed Alam from Gulistan-i-Jauhar said that his area was also without power from 10pm till 9pm. Dr Salma Moin, calling from Gulistan-i-Jauhar, reported a three-and-a-half hour breakdown that occurred at 2.30pm.
A resident of Federal B Area Block 15, Dastagir, Waheed Siddiqui, said that power supply to his area was suspended at 1pm for three hours and again at 4.30pm for another five hours.
