KARACHI: K-Electric has announced that there will be no loadshedding during Sehri and Iftar.

According to a statement issued by the KE on Saturday, the residential and commercial areas will have uninterrupted power supply during Sehri and Iftar. Also, the main mosques of the city will be exempted from loadshedding during taraweeh prayers throughout the holy month.

Clarifying the difference between loadshedding and power outages, a KE spokesperson said: “It is important to understand the difference between loadshedding and faults/tripping. KE is operating through approximately 1,400 feeders scattered over an area as vast as 6,500sq km.

“Moreover, there are about 63 grid stations with 2,500 sub-stations which include a total 20,000 PMTs. Covering such a network it is natural if a fault erupts, and there is sometimes a chance of tripping at these grid stations as well that leads to power outages which should not in any way be confused with loadshedding.”

It was said that to deal with outages, the KE management had deployed rapid response teams to cope with faults, whereas four regional control rooms had also been set up to monitor the network which would operate round the clock. “To facilitate consumers in registering their complaints, the 118 Call Centre resources have been beefed up.”

The KE also urged the governor and chief minister to play their role in bringing the Karachi Nuclear Power Plant back on line before Ramazan. “Due to the shutdown of Kanupp, 70MW supply to KE has been suspended,” the statement said.

Published in Dawn, June 29th, 2014