KARACHI: Massive power breakdown on Friday morning till afternoon due to technical problems in the National Grid Line interrupted electricity supply badly hampered industrial production in the port city.
Commercial activities however remained largely unaffected. According to traders, the peak shopping time usually starts after the sunset in Eid season. For religious reasons markets close early on the night of 27th Ramazan.
Industrialists working three shifts said they were already stressed because of frequent power outages, especially at night during the month of Ramazan.
Though many industrialists had stand-by generators, they said power gadgets could not be operated indefinitely owing to high power generation cost.
The breakdown came at a time when exporters were busy in meeting shipments deadlines ahead of Eid holidays.
Ahsan Arshad Ayub, Senior Vice Chairman, Site Association of Industry, said most of the industrial activities were affected when exports were planned to leave from the port before Eid holidays. He said that still many areas were without power.
A few days back, Site Association lamented seven hours unannounced load-shedding despite provision of 222mmcfd average gas by the Sui Southern Gas Company to the K-Electric.
FB Area Association of Trade and Industry Chairman Shaikh Mohammad Tehsin said that in some areas power was restored by 11am, but in other areas, hide and seek of power caused disruption in production activities.
“It brought down production turnover by 30-40 per cent in FB Area,” he said.
Farooq Khatora, Deputy Chief of North Karachi Association of Trade and Industry Crime Monitoring Cell said that production loss was estimated between Rs400 and 500 million on Friday in 2,500 industries in North Karachi.
He said industrialists were already facing unannounced load-shedding from 1am to 7am during Ramazan.
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Another industrialist in North Karachi said that first shift remained inoperative resulting in 70pc drop in production activities in many industries.
Farrukh Mazhar, chairman of Korangi Association of Trade and Industry, said the power outage hurt 40-50pc production activities.
Published in Dawn, July 26th, 2014
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