KARACHI, July 31: Citizens endured power outages for more than four hours on a hot and humid Tuesday as the Karachi Electric Supply Corporation resorted to 300-megawatt load-shedding after the Bin Qasim Power Plant operation dropped to a little over half of its installed capacity.

Although the KESC had revived the Bin Qasim Unit 6 back by Tuesday afternoon, units 1 and 2 were producing only 50 per cent of their capacity and their generation had to be scaled down for some maintenance.

A KESC spokesman said all the generation units were functioning normally while Director Coordination Adnan Bashir Khan’s cellphone was powered off.

Sources said there was a shortage of 300 megawatts as the demand surged to over 2,300 megawatts while the supply remained closer to 2,000 megawatts, including 700 megawatts provided by Wapda.

Complaints were also received about the failure of the power utility to rectify the so-called cable faults despite several hours in different areas.

A resident of North Karachi’s Sector 11-A complained that his area was subjected to power outages for more than three hours thrice a day though the KESC spokesman claimed that the utility was resorting to 90-minute load-shedding on a rotation basis.

In addition to complaints of prolonged power outages, people also complained of low voltage damaging their electrical problems. The complaints were received from Federal B. Area, North Nazimabad, Nazimabad, Orangi, Gulshan-i-Iqbal, Gulistan-i-Jauhar, Malir, Defence and Clifton.

It is worth-noting that the problem with the 11kV distribution system still persists as there was no planning and execution strategy in the past to upgrade the network that actually concerns the general public. If the work on this project is started now, the next summer could be less problematic.