KARACHI, June 28: The ill-maintained transmission and distribution system of the Karachi Electric Supply Corporation broke down in many localities of the city on Saturday.

Many residents of Gulshan-i-Iqbal told Dawn that the previous night they had suffered several prolonged power breakdowns.

Calling from Gulshan-i-Iqbal, Block 4, a resident said that it was beyond her comprehension why the KESC could not ensure uninterrupted power supply. “I was at my workplace in Defence when the power breakdown occurred around afternoon on Friday. I called home and was told that my children had been without electricity for the past two hours. I returned home in the evening when the power supply had been restored for a little while. We had another power cut. When I called complaint centre, I was told that loadshedding was on. My family spent the entire night without electricity.”

A resident of North Karachi, Sector 11-A, complained that his locality had been without electricity for more than three hours the previous night. “When I called the regional complaint centre, they told me that it was an isolated fault. It was stupid of them because the entire area in our neighbourhood had been dark and they were telling me that it was an isolated fault. This is the normal excuse of our regional complaint centre. Even if it is loadshedding, they tell the consumers that it is an isolated fault which will be fixed in a little while,” he said.

A resident of PECHS, Block 6, near Chanesar Halt, said that his locality had faced a power breakdown at around 10 the previous night.

“The power supply was restored after almost one hour, but it remained unstable. The voltage kept fluctuating, forcing us to keep our electrical appliances off. It was as bad as an actual power breakdown.”

Abrar Karim Khan, a resident of Nazimabad, said that he had been infuriated by a statement of a KESC official in which he had said that localized faults should not be reported.

“This shows the way the KESC operates. It never attaches importance to isolated power breakdowns. As a result, the electricity consumers suffer silently.”

Meanwhile, parliamentary leader of MMA in Sindh Assembly, Nasrullah Shajee and other members have expressed concern over the water and power crises in the city and demanded of the Sindh chief minister to intervene into situation.