June 15, 2008	Sunday	Jamadi-us-Sani 10, 1429

HYDERABAD, June 14: The national grid system still faces a shortfall of 170 megawatts in power generation as Jamshoro Thermal powerhouse continues efforts to restart one of its units, which stopped functioning on May 10 after developing some fault.

The powerhouse’s management has sought Chinese help to repair the faulty Chinese-made unit, referred to as Unit-II. The rest of the three units, two Chinese and one Japanese made, are working well.

Sources in the powerhouse said that the management was in correspondence with the Chinese company that had installed the unit around 1990-91. “Some of the parts have been made available from Guddu and some have to be brought from China,” said the source.

The management has sought assistance from China though the company’s local representative and awaits his response. “We are hopeful we will get the reply during coming week,” said the source.

The Wapda House Lahore, which provides spare parts for power generators, has also been informed about the nature of fault in the unit. “The management runs all the three Chinese units to generate around 140 to 150 megawatts of electricity, and Japanese unit to produce 140 megawatt of electricity as a precautionary measure given the worn-out state of entire machinery of units,” said an official.

The management had also requested Wapda for shutting down the unit as the annual shutdown for maintenance of this unit, which had completed 34,000 running hours, had also become due, he said.

Unit-II had caught fire in Dec 2006 as well. The rated capacity of each Chinese unit is 210 megawatts while that of Japanese is 250 megawatts. The powerhouse was commissioned in 1990-91 and it now needed capacity improvement. It contributes around 600 megawatts of electricity to national gird system.

LOADSHEDDING: A large number of people took to the streets in Liaquat Colony and Pucca Qilla on Saturday to protest against hours-long loadshedding in their areas.

The protesters staged demonstrations after lighting bonfires on the roads and raised slogans against the Hyderabad Electricity Supply Company (Hesco).

They said that power supply had been suspended to their areas for several hours without any prior announcement.

Hesco had not prepared a schedule for loadshedding neither it had bothered to inform them so that they could plan their routine accordingly, they complained.

They appealed to Hesco authorities to announce area-wise loadshedding schedule to help ease the frustration caused by hours-long power outages.

They said that in spite of power breakdown they were receiving inflated bills and Hesco officials had made it very cumbersome to get them adjusted or corrected.

They said that they were made to run between the offices of superintending engineer and executive engineers to get the bills corrected while the officers always remained busy in other field work.