KARACHI, March 6: Business and industrial activities virtually came to a halt on Thursday morning owing to a massive power shutdown in Karachi.

The power suspension occurred owing to short supply of electricity from Wapda which tripped the KESC system, and it took more than eight hours to restore the supply by the power utility.

As morning shifts in industrial units started work at 8am, a major power breakdown paralysed the industrial sector of the city and affected trading activity in this economic hub of the country.

The industry is said to have suffered loss worth millions owing to unannounced power outage for almost the entire day.

Sources said that production in industrial units suffered as the first shift of workers was unable to start work because of the power outage and had to return homes after waiting for restoration of power throughout the day.

As summer has just started, the first major power outage has been taken by the industry and business as a bad omen for the rest of the hot season.

Business leaders were critical of the performance of the power utilities which, they said, were partially responsible for falling productivity of the industrial sector in the country.

They were not too optimistic, and expect a difficult future if swift energy plan was not put in place.

The most frightening aspect of the prolonged power outage is that Wapda disconnected supply of 300MW to KESC for the alleged non-payment of dues worth billions of rupees. This led to the tripping of the entire KESC system.

SITE Association of Industry chairman M Nisar Shaikhani told Dawn that industrial and other consumers would like to know that when they had been making timely payment of their energy bills to the KESC, “why there is such an accumulation of huge arrears.” He further stated that the KESC hierarchy was morally bound to explain why consumers should suffer on this count.

Korangi Association of Trade and Industry (Kati) chairman Sheikh Fazle Jalil said that industries in his area suffered production loss worth Rs1.5 billion in a single shift.Being the largest industrial area of the country, he said, it suffered invisible loss in the shape of damage to sensitive equipment, plants and machinery.

“I must say that the privatisation of KESC was a worst experience as it is causing huge losses to national economy, and there is hardly any one accountable,” he lamented.

In the past, Mr Jalil said there was constant link between power utility management and business community, but now it had snapped all sorts of links.

The KATI chairman urged the federal government to intervene, and even suggested the nationalisation of the KESC in the larger national interest.

He said around 4,500 units, having around 300,000 to 350,000 workers, lost billions of rupees in production and many have missed their shipping schedule which may even result in cancellation of export orders.

Idrees Gigi, chairman, F B Area Association of Trade and Industry, said that though 60 per cent of industry had self-generation facility, once it shifts to this system, their cost of production goes high.

However, he said 40 per cent of small and medium-sized units remained the worst sufferer and they remained without production activity for the entire first shift of the day.

Consequently, he said it was not only the industry which had to suffer, but the national exchequer had also to bear losses owing to non-collection of revenue for those lost production hours.

North Karachi Association of Trade and Industry chairman Noor Ahmed Khan said the entire industry remained without production during the first production shift of the day.

This industrial area, he said, mostly houses cottage, small and medium-sized units and they do not have resources to install self-generating units.

As a result of this, he said, around one billion rupees production loss was suffered during power outage on Thursday which lasted over nine hours.

Mr Khan said around 40,000 to 50,000 industrial workers are engaged in the industry where some large textile, towel and garment units are also operating.

The SITE chairman appealed to the Sindh governor, the chief minister and the federal minister for water and power to take notice of the incident and ensure that such mishaps do not occur in future.