June 03, 2008	Tuesday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 28, 1429

KARACHI, June 2: The energy saving drive of the government found little favour with traders in the city on Monday, as markets remained open beyond the stipulated time on the first working day of the week.

While people have been suffering degenerating power supply with prolonged and nightlong power outages since Sunday night the situation was not so encouraging amid blazing heat in 34 degrees Celsius with 72 per cent humidity. Various residential areas across the city were hit by prolonged and unannounced power outages of up to 10 hours from late Sunday night till Monday evening.

A source in the Karachi Electric Supply Company (KESC) said that the utility resorted to hours-long load-shedding to meet the shortfall that touched the alarming level of 450 megawatts during the peak hours on Monday. It was reliably learnt that around 7:30pm the KESC was facing 323-MW shortage of electricity. However, the power crisis deepened due to frequent faults and tripping in the electricity transmission and distribution systems in various localities causing hours-long power failures.

The KESC source said that shortfall of electricity had been mainly due to shutdown of power generation unit no 2 of Bin Qasim Thermal Power Station and prolonged stoppage of electric supply from the Karachi Nuclear Power Plant. It may be noted that a gas cylinder explosion at the Bin Qasim facility claimed two lives on Sunday though the authorities claimed that this did not affect the power supply.

A substation of the KESC, meanwhile, caught fire in Block-M of North Nazimabad resulting in prolonged power failure since Sunday night. Apparently due to phenomenal overloading of the electric supply systems in summer, the incidents of fire at the grid stations and sub-stations of the KESC have become frequent.

Calling from Block-20 of the Federal B Area, a complainant said that apartments near Edhi morgue had been experiencing power failures since Sunday night. Power supply in the locality was suspended after every two hours, he said.

A resident of Block-20 in Gulistan-i-Jauhar said that power supply disrupted first on Sunday night and resumed at 3am. Again there was a power failure at 3:30am that continued for one hour, and then another prolonged electricity breakdown hit the locality at 5am on Monday morning.

The deteriorated situation of power supply, low-voltage, and frequent power failures have been coming heavy on the precious household electrical appliances. Various areas of the city have developed acute water shortage due to frequent power outages affecting the working of water utility’s installations.

Complaints of power cuts were received from the areas of Korangi, Liaquatabad, Abul Hasan Isphahani Road and North Nazimabad. Residents of various areas suffered prolonged or multiple power failures on Sunday night, causing them to spend sleepless nights.

Though the government has introduced the energy saving strategy to meet the power shortages in summer, it is yet to be seen how much traders and businessmen in the city abide by the rules of the conservation plan. Besides, the KESC is far from completing the task of disconnecting electric supply to all hoardings, billboards, and advertising signs installed in the jurisdictions of various land-controlling and municipal authorities in accordance with the provisions of the electricity conservation plan.