LAHORE: The intensity of unannounced loadshedding for hours in addition to time-to-time tripping and fluctuation or the power failures due to other technical faults continued on Friday as the people in Lahore and other parts of the country passed another day in tough situation.

“We witnessed forced outages at least 5 to 6 times on Friday. In addition to this, we are also witnessing tripping, power fluctuation etc,” Nazir, a resident of Ravi Road, said.

“These are perhaps the worst days we ever witnessed,” he continued, requesting the government to take immediate remedial measures.

Various residents of Chuhng, Manga, Baghbanpura, Batapur, Salamatpura (GT Road), Shahdara, Township, Johar Town and Gulberg also complained about the loadshedding.

“Comparatively, the Friday was a bit better compared to the last three or four days as we witnessed less tripping and loadshedding,” said Shahid, a resident of Johar Town. However, another man belonging to Batapur said the Lahore Electric Supply Company (Lesco) continued observing five to six hours forced loadshedding in his area. “Besides loadshedding, tripping is another major issue that is damaging our home appliances,” Shahid added.

On the other hand, Lesco Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Chaudhry Muhammad Amin dispelled the impression, claiming that the situation on Friday was much better than the previous days.

“Lahore was very smooth today (on Friday) as we provided uninterrupted power supply to all parts of the city except the Ravi Road and Bund Road localities where a fault in the grid of National Transmission and Despatch Company caused disruption in our 132kV power distribution system.”

Mr Amin said the situation in Manga and Batapur localities was troublesome since these areas were in service jurisdiction of high loss feeders.

“As a policy matter, we are observing loadshedding for four hours and six hours in the 40 to 50pc and 50 to 80 percent line loss feeder areas, respectively.”

Mr Amin added that Lesco touched its maximum/peak demand of 4,800MW on Friday at 3:30pm whereas it drew 4,500MW.

“The total demand included 2,200 to 2,400MW consumed by the domestic and commercial consumers of Lahore metropolitan city alone,” the Lesco CEO said and added that overloading of the system and tripping were due to the panic use of electricity by the consumers.

“I am sure the situation would start improving a lot from Saturday (today) as 1,500MW are set to be added in the national grid,” Mr Amin added.

Published in Dawn, July 3rd, 2021