KARACHI, Sept 24: Karachiites braved yet another day of prolonged power cuts amid soaring temperatures on Sunday.
Although intermittent power breakdowns are a routine affair in the city, such a major outage, rendering half of the city without power, on the eve of Ramazan added to the miseries of the people. Enraged people took to the streets in several parts of the city.
The abrupt suspension of 700MW power supply to the distribution network of the Karachi Electricity Supply Corporation (KESC) from Wapda left more than a half of the city without power in the afternoon between 1:30pm to 2pm and many areas remained without power for more than 10 hours.
A large number of perturbed citizens called newspaper offices to inquire about the exact situation as most of them complained that the KESC complaint numbers remained busy. Some of them, however, complained that the behaviour of operators was rude and non-serious as they did not give any satisfactory reason for the power breakdown.
According to a KESC spokesperson, “Karachi has been receiving up to 700MW power from Wapda, which has been suspended due to a major breakdown. We have closed down one of the power generating units in Bin Qasim Power Station for maintenance resulting in the shortage of 100MW. The unit will resume generation in November.”
Currently, he said, that the KESC was facing 800MW shortfall in power generation. KESC is generating 1,027MW from its own power plants and is getting 208MW power from Independent Power Producers (IPPs), he added saying that the available power with the KESC is 1,235 MW, whereas the demand is more than 2,000MW.
He said that the KESC had divided the city in four groups and two groups were being provided with power on rotation. It had been resorting to power load shedding spanning four to six hours in two groups simultaneously, thus the half of the city was without power.
The prolonged power failure in the city also badly affected the working of the Citizens-Police Liaison Committee (CPLC) located on the premises of the Governor’s House, as the organisation has not been provided with an alternative arrangement.
Sources said that the CPLC was the only institution which was consulted by the police to verify a vehicle if it was stolen or not. Due to the power failure, computer system of the CPLC did not work.
Contrary to the claim of the KESC spokesman, people from various localities complained that they were without power supply for more than seven or eight hours and the KESC failed to manage the distribution of the power load as it had claimed.
Raheel from Block 13-D/2 in Gulshan-i-Iqbal said that his locality had been experiencing frequent power failures for two to three hours daily. The KESC had crossed the limits on Sunday and the power remained suspended since 1:45pm. It came for a while at around 4:30pm and again went off.
According to Shehla Fateh from Jamshed Road, her area was without power since 11am on Saturday. Syed A. Mateen from Gulshan-i-Iqbal Block 13-D said that the power supply was disrupted at around 4pm. He said that the power supply situation was worse since the new management took over the power utility.
Mrs Samee from Gulshan-i-Iqbal Block-7 said that the power supply was suspended at around 4:30pm. Mrs Khan from Defence Phase V in Khayaban-i-Bahria said that if the new private management could not handle the power utility, the government should scrap the deal and take its control back to get the citizens rid of this continuous torment.
Javed from Defence Phase IV on the 4th commercial street said that the power supply was suspended to his locality since 6pm. It was the routine of KESC to switch the power off from 6pm to 11pm, he added.
Another irate consumer Shoaib from Defence Phase VII Extension said that the power supply was disrupted for several hours to his locality. A consumer from Block-2 in Clifton said that the power supply was suspended for six hours and the KESC complaint numbers remained busy.
Shahid from Federal B Area in Block-17 said that the power supply went off for an hour in the afternoon, and again it went off at around 4:30pm and remained suspended for five hours. He said that the preparation of the holy month became difficult in the absence electricity.
Abdul Kaleem from PECHS Block-2 said that the power supply to his locality remained suspended for five hours and the complaint centre numbers remained busy. A consumer from Mohammad Ali Society Block-1/7-B said that the power supply to his locality was switched off at 1pm and it was not restored despite the passage of several hours.
Tufail from Garden East on Edward Street said that the power supply was suspended to his locality at around 11am and despite the lapse of more than nine hours, power was not restored.
A resident of Korangi No.6, Area 51-C said that the power supply was discontinued at around 11am and it was not restored after the lapse of several hours. He said: “I have made frantic calls to the KESC complaint centre but no one was there to pick up the receiver or it was found busy.”
A consumer from Gulistan-i-Jauhar Block-16/A in KDA Overseas Bungalows said that the power supply was disconnected at around 6pm and it was not restored despite the lapse of four hours.
Another irate consumer from Gulistan-i-Jauhar Block 15, Riaz Burney, slammed the power utility over prolonged power cuts in his locality and added that most of the times the KESC complaint numbers remained busy.
The prolonged power failures sparked power riots as enraged people in various localities, who had been experiencing prolonged power outages, took to streets, pelted vehicles with stones and lit bonfire. The troubled areas included Albela Chowk in Soldier Bazaar, Mauripur Road, Guru Mandir intersection, Liaquatabad, Lasbella, Ramaswami, and some other localities.
