July 31, 2008	Thursday	Rajab 27, 1429

KARACHI, July 30: A vast area of the city remained without electricity on Wednesday as over 30,000 complaints of power breakdowns remain unattended by the Karachi Electric Supply Company, while no one within the utility seems to be prepared to own responsibility for the crisis.

The utility was still facing an approximately 500 megawatt shortfall as its flagship Bin Qasim Power Plant was only operating at half its optimum output, generating much below par – presumably to save fuel cost – in total disregard to the consumers’ interest.

At least 30 per cent of the city was still without electricity on Wednesday evening as the KESC does not have the capability and technical expertise to deal with the situation.

No rain

Meanwhile, though the sky remained cloudy on Wednesday no rain was reported from any part of the city. However, strong winds blew around the airport in the afternoon, the Met Office said.

The Met officials, in their forecast for Thursday, said that the sky would remain cloudy with a chance of thunderstorm/rain, with the maximum temperature remaining between 35 and 37 degrees Celsius.

The minimum temperature recorded on Wednesday was 24.5 degrees Celsius and maximum temperature recorded was 35 degrees Celsius with the humidity remaining at 67 per cent.

Residents of numerous residential areas on Tuesday had to spend the second consecutive night without electricity due to the virtual collapse of the KESC’s system. Consumers are literally and figuratively in the dark as they have no idea whether there would be uninterrupted electricity in their residential areas on Wednesday night to ensure a peaceful night’s sleep.

A source in the centralised complaint centre – ‘118’ – of the KESC said that in just eight hours on Tuesday the complaint centre had received around 22,500 complaints regarding power failures and breakdowns in various parts of the city, mainly due to the breakdown of the power supply system in the aftermath of the rain. The utility could hardly attend to half of the minor complaints but by 7pm on Wednesday, over 10,000 additional complaints regarding prolonged and recurring power failures in numerous areas poured in.

The source said that faults had been occurring everywhere in the system and installations of the power transmission and distribution network and their growing number would continue to disturb the power supply system in large parts of the city in the days to come.

A source privy to the power supply situation informed Dawn on Wednesday evening that owing to rectification work on the Valika-KDA transmission line of the KESC, power supply from eight grid stations in the city had become seriously affected, which included the Baldia, Mauripur, Orangi, North Karachi, Liaquatabad, and Gulshan-i-Iqbal grid stations.

Several large residential areas, whose power supply system is connected to these grids, have become severely disturbed with recurring and prolonged power failures.

Inhabitants of Nazimabad, Federal B Area, Gulistan-i-Jauhar, Malir, Korangi, Saddar and Clifton complained that since the rainfall on Tuesday evening, they had been enduring recurring power cuts after every two to three hours.

‘All faults removed’

A spokesman for the KESC, however, claimed that all the faults in the power generation and transmission system of the power utility had been removed by evening, while there had been some localised complaints regarding the power supply system, which are being addressed by the KESC staff.

He said that owing to the rain the day before, the demand for power on Wednesday had reduced to 1,600 to 1,700 MW. As such, the power utility did not follow the regular schedule of load-shedding.

He said the KESC would decide on Thursday whether there is a need to follow the routine spells of load-shedding keeping in view the situation of power supply in the city.

People from all walks of life are demanding that the government should investigate why the KESC system crumbled – along with its financial cost – minutes after the first monsoon drizzle late on Monday night.

They are also demanding the appointment of an administrator to oversee the utility’s affairs. The irony of the situation is that no one from the government has taken notice of the problem, which represents the professional and managerial incompetence of those who were given the utility on a silver platter through a manipulated privatization deal.

Water shortage problem worsens

The city’s water supply situation aggravated following a shortfall of 30 million gallons it suffered on Wednesday in the wake of power breakdowns at the KWSB’s key pumping stations, raising the quantum of short supply to the tune of over 185 million gallons in the last two days.

Such a huge shortfall, which comes to about one-third of the city’s total water supply of 625mgd and more than half of its actual supply of 351mgd after deducting 35 per cent water losses owing to the leakages and technical losses, created a water crisis in various parts of the city, forcing residents of water-starved localities to purchase private tanker trips at exorbitant rates.

Sources in the KWSB said that since the gap between the city’s water demand and supply had widened, it would take two days to normalise the situation provided no major power breakdowns occurred at its major pumping stations on Thursday and Friday.

A number of people calling from different parts of the city complained that their localities either went completely dry or received scant supply with a very low pressure.

They complained that private tankers, taking advantage of the situation, did a roaring business in their localities, charging between Rs1,000 and Rs1,200 for a tanker of 1,000 gallons against the normal rates of Rs600 and Rs800.

According to KWSB officials, pumping of water from the North-East Karachi pumping station (old pump house) remained suspended from 4pm on Tuesday to 3.15pm on Wednesday owing to the absence of electricity, while pumping of water to the city from the NEK-III pump house remained suspended for three hours on Wednesday due to a power breakdown.

Similarly, pumping of water from its Dhabeji station remained suspended from 7.10pm to 11.10pm on Tuesday while NEK’s K-II pump house could not be operated for 12 hours as there was no electricity from 11.40pm on Tuesday to 4.30pm on Wednesday, the officials said, adding that since the KESC had failed to provide the required load at the pump house, it was pumping only 64mgd, instead of the normal 100mgd of water.

They said frequent power failures occurring at the utility’s local water distribution pumping stations had resulted in the wastage of water.