April 29, 2008	Tuesday	Rabi-us-Sani 22, 1429

KARACHI, April 28: The Karachi Electric Supply Company resorted to load-shedding at least thrice on Monday due to the closure of a power generating unit at Bin Qasim Power Plant.

The Unit No 2 of Bin Qasim Power Plant, which was generating 170 megawatts, stopped functioning on Sunday. Its closure brought the utility’s own generation down to about 900MW. KESC engineers would take six days to repair the fault and it was expected that the unit would resume its operation by May 5, sources said.

Since Sunday night power failures in various residential localities of the metropolis have aggravated mainly due to fragile power generation, transmission, and distribution systems of the KESC which were reportedly affected by the current spell of an intense heatwave.

Students, senior citizens, traders, shopkeepers were seriously affected by frequent and prolonged power breakdowns on Monday when the city’s temperature was recorded at 37 degrees centigrade. Residents of various localities complained about prolonged instances of low voltage and fluctuation, especially on Sunday night. Besides, there were complaints that KESC staff were not attending to the complaints about broken wires, which had put life of people at risk.

Residents of Korangi No 2 complained that for the last 10 days their locality had been facing power fluctuation, which had damaged electrical appliances. The worst affected were residents of quarters from T-501 to 510 and T-570 to 580.

The main electronics market in Saddar, meanwhile, has been flooded with the Uninterrupted Power Supply (UPS) units and the power consumers suffering highly unreliable electric supply situation have no option but to purchase UPS units on exorbitant rates.

A resident of Gulshan-i-Iqbal Block-1 said his area was deprived of electricity at 9am and power supply was restored after 2pm. He said the area residents had also suffered a breakdown staggering over two hours late Sunday night.

From Gulistan-i-Jauhar Block-7, a consumer said that his area was deprived of electricity for more than three hours on Sunday night.

Perhaps the worst was the case with the residents of Defence Phase-II extension as a complainant told Dawn that his area was without electricity for more than six hours on Monday. The area was without power supply from 1am to 4am, between 9am and 12 noon, and finally the power that went off around 6pm was not restored till late in the evening.

Students of Class IX and X, who are appearing in the annual examinations, also faced difficulties in exam preparation due to frequent electricity breakdowns.

Besides the residential areas, various markets and commercial localities of the city experienced two to three spells of load-shedding, each spreading over two hours.