KARACHI, June 9: The Karachi Electric Supply Corporation did little to rectify the transmission and distribution system which broke down in many localities on Monday.

A resident of Federal B Area, Block 17, stated that seven houses in his locality lost electricity around 6.30pm on Sunday.

“We read the telephone numbers of our regional complaint centre from a power bill. When we dialled 6378120, 6344110, 6364332, we were told that complaints are not registered at these numbers, and we were given another number i.e. 6805001. The question is that if complaints are not registered at these numbers, why are they on the bill? In any case, we lodged a complaint and were told that soon a KESC vehicle would come to our locality to fix the fault.”

He added that after a while, a neighbour also called to lodge his complaint, but the KESC staff said that since the complaint had already been registered, there was no need for him to lodge another complaint.

“The KESC staff continued to tell us that our power supply would be restored soon, but the vehicle came at 1.30am, after a lapse of seven hours. The KESC staff said that they needed a long wire to rectify the fault completely, but because they did not have the long wire, they had fixed the fault on a provisional basis. They told us that we might have another power breakdown of the similar nature.”

Ashraf Khan called from Defence, Phase 2 Extension, commercial area, and said that a large number of KESC consumers in his commercial locality were planning to turn to self-generation of power.

“The supply of electricity from the KESC is expensive and unreliable. With our generators, we will at least be able to work to deadlines,” he observed.

It is important to remember that so many KESC consumers have turned to self-generation of electricity that 400 megawatts are generated by people on their own.

A KESC consumer called from Gulshan-i-Iqbal and said his locality had been without electricity for more than four hours the previous night.

“It looks that the KESC does not work at night. We called our regional complaint centre several times, but nobody picked up the phone.”

Another consumer from the same locality said he also had a prolonged power breakdown the previous night.