KARACHI, Aug 22: Many shopping centers and various localities in the metropolis suffered prolonged power cuts on Tuesday. The KESC officials admitted that weak cables in the distribution system were the main obstacles in the smooth power supply to the consumers.

According to the KESC, 12 sub-stations in Clifton, Defence and SITE could not work properly due to leaky roofs allowing rainwater to pass through. The work to plug the leakages was being carried out and soon all the sub-stations would be working properly.

The officials said that four shopping centers in Clifton – Gulf Shopping Mall, Metro Shopping Centre, Taamir-i-Mashriq Shopping Centre and Gulshan-i-Faisal – besides some parts of Bath Island were still under water. They said that the accumulated rainwater was the major hurdle in rectifying the power cables and thus the restoration of power supply was not possible in the given situation.

About the overall situation, they said that the power generation was according to the demand and there was no need of load shedding.

However, people complained about power failures in their respective localities. Dr Tahir Ali from Block-13/A in Gulistan-i-Jauhar said that the prolonged power failure in his locality was a perpetual problem. He said that the power went off on Tuesday at around 12:45pm and was not restored till 8pm. He said that the KESC officials told him that they were trying to locate the fault and they did not find it even after a lapse of more than six hours.

An irate citizen from Block-20 in Federal B Area said that intermittent power failures in his locality were a routine. A consumer from Bahadurabad said that the frequency of power outages in his locality had increased since the first spell of rain in the first week of August. He said that the KESC’s performance had deteriorated since its privatisation.

Nand Lal from Clifton Block-8 said that the power supply was disrupted at around 5pm for more than three hours. He said that the power supply remained suspended whole day long on Monday.