ALL through last week, Karachi saw a series of power outages that left the entire city — including the airport and many hospitals — without electricity. Some of these incidents left the city without electricity for hours on end, and it took almost a full day for power to be restored to several areas — that only plunged back into darkness a short while after. At least three such incidents were reported in the past week that K-Electric blamed on the Extra High Tension line that supplies power to the city from the national grid. All that the residents were told was that ‘supply from the national grid to the city is off’, without much elaboration on why this might be the case. In another instance, the utility’s spokesperson blamed the outage on excess humidity. Meanwhile, the power regulator, Nepra, issued a short press release saying that K-Electric had not invested in its transmission system, and that had left it vulnerable to tripping due to various reasons.

Residents of the city can only guess at what is going on. What is clear is that the outages are not the result of any power shortage, nor any sudden surges or other unforeseeable events. They are, pure and simple, the consequence of a transmission system that is highly vulnerable to vagaries and in dire need of maintenance as well as upgradation. That this situation should exist at a time when K-Electric sponsors enjoy boasting about all that they have invested in the utility and the miraculous turnaround they have brought about in its financial condition is beyond belief. There are no extreme weather events happening around us to put the blame on, and if there are problems with purchases from the national grid, that has in years past caused blackouts of this sort, then K-Electric should be clearer in stating this. As it stands, the power outages simply underline the fact that there is nobody to care for the city’s well-being.

Published in Dawn, October 8th, 2018