KARACHI, Sept 13: Traders of the city commercial markets and shopping centres have feared that their sales may hit sharply if the KESC continues with unannounced five to six hours daily power breakdowns during the peak shopping season which starts from 10th of Ramazan.

Many traders have arranged power generators on load sharing basis for the holy month, but they will be recovering the high cost of running these generators from the consumers.

Perturbed by the unannounced long-hour power breakdowns, traders of Tariq Road on Thursday announced that the market would be shut on Friday in protest against the KESC, which has completely failed in ensuring uninterrupted power electricity supplies to both residential and commercial areas.

They said that the utility company had resorted to massive power cuts in commercial areas in the last three to four weeks during peak shopping hours after sunset putting both buyers and shopkeepers in great trouble.

“We cannot entertain illegal demands of the KESC officials. They are trying to blackmail traders for acceptance of their demands,” said Tariq Road Traders Action Committee chairman Siddiq Memon.

Three weeks back the entire shopping area had been facing loadshedding of three hours, but for the last one week the duration of power breakdown had been increased to six hours during day time and especially in rush time after Maghrib prayers, he said.

He said traders had also decided to take out protest rallies if the KESC fails to resume full electricity supply from Saturday.

The market comprises of 8,326 shops located in 40 shopping centres and 45 different kinds of bazaars and the over 24,000 workers are employed in 8,000 shops. He said out of 8,326 shops, some 3,500 shopkeepers have stand by power generators while others have emergency lights or uninterrupted power supply (UPS) to handle the power crisis.

A high official of the KESC told Dawn that the daily power consumption of the Tariq Road market stood at 16 MW.

Senior Vice chairman Saddar Alliance of Market Association Abdul Samad Khan said that for the last three to four days, various markets from Fountain Chowrangi of Abdullah Haroon Road to Regal had been facing five to six hours power breakdowns daily.

“In case the KESC fails improve power supply position by Monday or Tuesday next, the association will chalk out its future course of action,” he added.