KARACHI / ISLAMABAD: The K-Electric on Wednesday announced that it would carry out three hours of loadshedding daily in the city’s so-called exempted, or low-loss, areas.

Consumers living in so-called low-loss areas within KE’s service territory were earlier exempted from loadshedding.

A KE spokesman told Dawn that new loadshedding regime was planned to provide a relief of one to two hours to its high-loss areas where prolonged loadshedding was being undertaken.

He said that the high-loss areas include Surjani Town, Baldia Town, Lyari, New Karachi, Malir, Qauidabad, etc.

However, he said that industrial sector was already exempted from the ongoing loadshedding and it would remain exempted.

The spokesperson said that the total power supply in Karachi was around 2,750MW against the expected demand of 3,100MW.

“There is a shortfall of around 350-400MW as on Wednesday,” he said, adding that the demand of electricity fluctuated due to sweltering weather.

Residents take to streets

Meanwhile, people in different parts of the city took to streets to record their protest against prolonged and unannounced power outages and chanted slogans against the power utility.

Residents of FC Area staged a peaceful protest and sit-in outside an area KE office against long spells of loadshedding. Elderly, women, men and children were also present in the protest and sit-in.

During the protest sit-in, the residents of the area said that despite paying their electricity bills, unannounced loadshedding of 12 to 14 hours was taking place due to which there was shortage of water.

The protesters demanded an end to unannounced long loadshedding.

During the protest, talks were held between the officials of FC Area Residents Welfare Association and the KE officials.

Similar protest was held in the Saddar area, where shopkeepers blocked the road for vehicular traffic.

Nepra told to look into complaints against KE

In Islamabad, a Senate panel on Wednesday showed its grave concern over the unannounced loadshedding in Karachi.

Senate Standing Committee on Cabinet Secretariat said that due to unannounced loadshedding, people of Karachi had been facing several issues and problems.

The committee directed the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra) chairman to look into the complaints and reservations of consumers against top officials of the K-Electric.

“Officials of K-Electric do not attend the committee meetings nor do they solve the problems of the people of Karachi. Due to the negligence of KE, many people died due to electrocution,” committee chairman Senator Rana Maqbool Ahmed said.

He said that it would be better that Senators Mushtaq Ahmed and Engineer Rukhsana Zubair visit Karachi, prepare a detailed report and submit it to the standing committee for making recommendations to the federal government.

Published in Dawn, June 9th, 2022