June 07, 2008	Saturday	Jamadi-us-Sani 02, 1429

KARACHI, June 6: Despite the assurances by KESC high-ups that domestic consumers will not be subjected to load-shedding after midnight, people spent yet another suffocating night suffering a prolonged outage.

As the mercury rose to 35 degrees centigrade and one of the utility’s generating units at Bin Qasim Power Plant remained out of commission, the KESC faced over 500-megawatt shortage on Friday. People suffered at least four spells of power outages, each lasting for more than two hours.

However, the utility officials were not ready to accept that domestic consumers were subjected to load-shedding after midnight. They put the blame on technical faults but could not explain as to how such faults occurred on such a massive scale at the same time and for a particular duration.

People in different parts of the city feared that criminals were taking advantage of load-shedding. In this context, they referred to a robbery in Shah Faisal Colony in which jewellery worth Rs20 million had been stolen from several shops. In another incident, several generators were taken away from a warehouse in Ranchore Line.

Meanwhile, traders defied the Friday closure schedule of markets that was announced by the government to overcome power shortage. Business was carried out as usual though traders criticised the utility for repeated outages and complained that they were losing millions of rupees everyday. It is pertinent to note here that the government has reached an understanding not to push traders for early closures of their business.

The list of possible causes of breakdowns goes from lack of power generation and distribution infrastructure, old equipment and line losses to inefficient staff and rifts in the utility’s administration. Rampant corruption is also cited as the reasons for the deteriorating condition of the utility. It’s alleged that employees became billionaires by providing illegal connections (kundas) across the metropolis, while the utility failed to develop any mechanism to put an end to the illegal use of electricity despite the fact that the city is hit by power crisis every summer.

The gap between power demand and supply has widened over the years. However, power breakdowns this year were more frequent and on a larger scale. Initially, the KESC blamed Wapda for it. But it later took another stand by not accepting that there is load-shedding being carried out in the city. Ironically, a breakdown has no effect on the monthly bill of electricity. It seems that electricity meters keep moving even if there is no light in a facility.

Prolonged power cuts have caused widespread anger among people and disrupted life in the city. Angry protesters have on different occasions ransacked KESC facilities, blocked roads and set tyres on fire. However, except for some bureaucratic presentations and political statements, nothing concrete has come out to improve the situation. It is feared that power failures and simmering crisis may result in power riots as the mercury level increases in the summer.