LARKANA: A fire at the 132kV grid station near Khosa village on Larkana-Ratodero road caused extensive damage to internal panels and resulted in a massive power breakdown in the district. The incident led to the shutdown of 17 feeders.

Fire brigade vehicles from Larkana and Naudero were called in to assist the grid station’s firefighting staff in extinguishing the blaze. It took them two hours to bring it under control, sources said.

The cause of the fire was short circuit, said Mushtaq Ahmed Burdi, the executive engineer. Speaking to Dawn, he said that five internal panels sustained extensive damage and 12 others were slightly affected.

He said the damage ran into millions of rupees as per the primary assessment.

Emergency maintenance teams, along with the required panel material, were dispatched to the grid station from Sukkur, he said.

Sources in the Sukkur Electric Power Company (Sepco) said that 10 of the 17 affected feeders were meant for villages and the rest for Larkana city.

The shutdown of the feeders caused a power breakdown in the areas of Empire Road, Dhamraha, Industrial zone, Old Naudero, Muradwahan, Baharpur, Waleed, Shaikh Zayed, City-III, Sachal, Jilani, Radio Pakistan, New Nazar Mohalla and Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto Medical University, besides their adjoining localities.

Engineer Burdi said that the repair work was in full swing and nine of the affected feeders would hopefully be energised by midnight.

A source in Sepco said that it would take 24 hours to re-energise all 17 feeders.

Mr Burdi said an inquiry into the incident was expected to be instituted possibly under a chief engineer.

Protesters fail to meet Bilawal

Police did not allow protesting teachers and students of Govt Model High School, Naudero, to meet Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari for handing over an application to him against Sepco’s alleged apathy.

The protesters were agitating their case against Sepco for its failure to install a pole-mounted transformer (PMT) for the school despite the fact that the education department had made a payment of Rs359,728 back on November 12, 2010 to the power utility.

They said that due to the issue, students’ computer-related studies and lab practicals were getting severely affected. “Through another cheque, an amount of Rs8,000 was paid to Sepco on Nov 15, 2010 for installing a meter”, sources in the school management said. The added that a meter was installed but it was temporarily connected with a feeder that mostly remained shut.

On Tuesday, the teachers and students of the school gathered outside Naudero House to take up their case with the PPP chairman but the policemen deployed there did not allow them into his house.

Carrying banners and placards inscribed with their demands, they repeatedly asked the police to let them meet Mr Bhutto-Zardari but were made to wait for hours.

Naudero’s Citizens’ Action Committee chairman Ghulam Haider Narejo and Naudero president of the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf Javed Bhutto later joined the protest.

Reports from Naudero said that the DSP and SHO of Naudero took the school’s headmaster, Ghulam Sarwar Mithani, and some other protesters into Naudero House and told them to wait for a meeting with Mr Bhutto-Zardari and MPA Faryal Talpur. But they had to leave the house without meeting them.

The Sepco sub-divisional officer concerned, speaking to local reporters, later explained that in the light of enhanced rates of PMT, a new estimate was being prepared. The required PMT would be installed once the estimate was approved by the executive engineer concerned and additional payment was made by the education department, he added.

Published in Dawn, January 29th, 2020