KARACHI, Dec 21: Citizens experienced long cuts in power supply again on Thursday. Consumers from almost all towns complained of immense hardship due to the situation and wondered what will be the situation in summer.
A KESC official said load-shedding, from 7pm to late in the night, on a rotation basis had to be enforced owing to a 130MW shortage on Thursday.
“The demand has substantially increased due to Christmas and Eidul Azha. The illuminations at religious places and markets had resulted in great pressure,” Adnan Bashir Khan, Director Operations (from Siemens) of the KESC told Dawn.
According to him, the demand exceeded 1,900 MW while the KESC has limited generation due to closure of two units at the Bin Qasim Power Station for maintenance, the KESC is faced with a shortage of 290MW while Wapda has also curtailed its supply from 700MW to 600MW per day. He, however, predicted a normal situation after Eid.
Meanwhile, power consumers from most localities complained of frequent power failures since Tuesday, saying that the situation had turned their lives miserable.
“It is the third consecutive day that power supply to our locality is suspended early in the morning and restored in the afternoon, disrupting our schedule of activities of the first half of the day,” a resident of DHA Phase-I said.
A consumer from Block 13-D, Gulshan-i-Iqbal, said power supply disruption and voltage fluctuation were causing immense hardship and inconvenience, besides material losses to the residents of this area.
Sources said the city’s demand in summer next year would stand at around 2,500MW and considering the KESC’s performance in the winter, this would be a big challenge to meet the demand.
Mr Adnan Bashir Khan, however, spoke of public awareness campaign to be launched along with the KESC’s maintenance programme, and said this would help the power utility to avert any crisis. The sources, however, feared that a crippling load-shedding would be the only option unless the KESC brought substantive improvements in the management, as well as its distribution system.
