August 25, 2008	Monday	Sha'aban 22, 1429

KARACHI, Aug 24: Most of the city areas experienced prolonged power cuts on Sunday as the Karachi Electric Supply Company (KESC) suffered a shortage of around 600 megawatts.

Apart from the dwindling generation and distribution capacity of the power capacity due to a lack of proper maintenance, the fuel-saving drive by the KESC is also said to be a factor contributing to this shortage. Insiders said that it was a virtual breakdown of the generation system. The shortfall of electricity crossed 600MW as Unit 4 of the Bin Qasim Thermal Power Station (BQTPS) remained shut while other units were operating much below their capacity, causing prolonged spells of load-shedding.

The Bin Qasim plant – producing 600MW, much below the desired output of 1,160MW – is said to be developing faults every now and then. Unit 4 of the BQTPS has been inoperative since Thursday night, whereas the rest of its units are giving low output, reportedly due to a drive to save gas and fuel cost to run the generation units.

According to sources, unit 4 of the Korangi Thermal Power Station (KTPS), giving around 40MW output, also tripped on Saturday.

The KTPS was also out of action and supply of about 80MW from Kanupp also got suspended on Friday, whereas power supply from the Defence Cogen desalination plant that stopped on Aug 15, was revived on Friday for less than 24 hours, and was again stopped due to problems with the KESC transmission network.

A source in the utility told Dawn that the KESC had been resorting to load-shedding in residential areas after every two hours for more than three hours. Besides, all the industrial estates of Karachi are also subjected to load-shedding simultaneously from 12 midnight to 4am.

Load-shedding is being observed in two groups at a time due to a serious shortfall of electric supply.

The maximum shortfall of electric supply faced by the KESC on Saturday was 650MW. Around 6pm, the shortage of electricity was recorded at 564MW.

Another source at the KESC 118 centralised complaint centre said that since Saturday, they had been flooded with frantic calls of power consumers from across the city.

All this was happening amid reports that the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra) has recommended further increase in power tariff and inflated bills are being sent to 2.4 million domestic consumers, who remain without power supply for a long time.

According to sources, the management of the utility has taken advantage of the government’s decision to withdraw subsidies and to pass on the burden of GST to the consumers.

Meanwhile, a SSGC spokesman said supplies from Bhit field of ENI Pakistan has been affected because it is engaged in annual maintenance from Aug 23 to September 4.