KARACHI: Despite most residents of the city remaining without power for hours and even as long as two days, K-Electric on Sunday insisted that things at their end were improving.

After calling an emergency meeting to review the situation at hand at their central control room late on Saturday night, KE was of the opinion that all the faults were due to the soaring temperatures and increase in consumption that has gone up to 3,100MW. According to a KE spokesman, to bring the problems under control KE had formed more rapid response teams that are working nonstop. On Saturday night the power utility expected to overcome all issues within 14 to 16 hours if consumers, too, cooperated with them. KE also appealed to the law enforcement agencies to provide their teams protection while on the job.

But throughout Sunday there seemed to be no end to the problems with recurrent power failures in Federal B Area, Gulshan-i-Iqbal, North Nazimabad, North Karachi, Jamshed Road, Abul Hasan Ispahani Road, Shah Faisal Colony and several areas of Korangi. KE on Sunday evening said that they would fix all the faults and normalise supply in those areas, too, in 10 to 12 hours.

Meanwhile, to make matters worse the city also experienced water shortage. The Karachi Water and Sewerage Board on Sunday notified that due to unannounced power shutdowns by KE twice at their important Gharo water pumping station on Sunday, the city was deprived of seven million gallons of water. The first outage was from 6.30am to 8.30am after which damage control came in the form of pumping water out to Karachi through the help of 10 pumps. But then the second outage occurred at 1.55pm and it wasn’t till 2.55pm when power was restored and water could be pumped out to the city once again.

Published in Dawn, June 22nd, 2015

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