KARACHI: Business time extended as power cuts continue
By Aamir Shafaat Khan
KARACHI, May 8: As the Sindh government succumbed to traders’ pressure on Tuesday and allowed the shops to remain open till 9pm (from Monday to Friday and up to 11pm on Saturday), residential consumers continued to fight both scorching heat and prolonged power breakdowns.
According to the president of the Karachi Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI), Majyd Aziz, the markets are also allowed to remain open on Sundays. However, the market associations are yet to receive an official notification about the extension of business hours.
The chairman of the Alliance of Market Association (AMA), Atiq Mir, said senior KCCI office-bearers had told him from Islamabad about the latest development, insisting on spreading the news in the markets. However, he said he could not inform the market people about the extension of time in the absence of a notification from the Sindh government. “If the demand has really been accepted according to the shopkeepers’ request, the association will ensure that all the markets and traders pull down the shutters by 9pm.”
He said that so far nothing had changed as power breakdowns continued unabated for three to four times a day in the markets causing huge losses to the businessmen.
“Consumers and even market people will not see any big improvement in the power supply position even if markets are closed by 9pm,” he said, adding that the KESC’s decades-old distribution system and other problems were responsible for the power failures.
“If the load-shedding continues despite the closure of shops at 9pm, traders will record their protest and bring out processions besides shifting to their old time of shop closing,” Atiq warned.
The chairman of the Tariq Road Traders Action Committee (TRTAC), Siddique Memon, said that the association had not received any notification, but the KCCI office-bearers had informed it about the extension of the time.
“I have forwarded the KCCI message to my members and they have agreed to close their businesses by 9pm,” he said.
However, the KESC deprived one side of Tariq Road of power from 12noon to 4pm on Tuesday, and the other side, comprising over 3,000 shops, plunged into darkness at 8pm. He said he had asked his members to switch off the lights of their signboards and cut the illumination inside the shops and switch off non-essential gadgets.
The Tariq Road shopping area consumes a total load of 16 megawatts. “We can curtail the load to eight megawatts if the KESC ensures uninterrupted power supply,” he said.
Siddique Memon said that he had given an ultimatum to the KESC that if the load-shedding was not stopped within the next 72 hours, the traders would revert to old shop closing time besides launching a protest campaign.
Meanwhile, consumers in all parts of the city suffered hours-long power failures. In many areas, there were reports of low voltage which damaged home appliances and electrical equipment.
A resident of Block L, North Nazimabad, said that the area had been suffering on an average six hours of power failures daily for the last 10 days.
Aamir Hussain from DHA Phase VI said that the area remained without power supply from 1pm to 6pm. He added that when all the area fell into darkness in the night, the floodlights of a stadium in the same locality remained on, “which is an embarrassment for us the residents”.
Another resident of Phase VI said that the area had been experiencing load-shedding from 9am to 10am, followed by 3pm to 5pm and 10pm to 12 midnight daily for the last 10 days.
A caller from Frere Town, Clifton, said that power on an average went off for three to four hours daily from morning to night for more than a week.
Residents of F.B. Area, Blocks 12 and 13, said that power supply remained disconnected for varying durations on Monday night, from 12 midnight to 4am, followed by a three-hour breakdown from 1pm to 4pm.
