KARACHI, July 24: The Karachi Electric Supply Corporation kept its more than 1.7 million consumers in the dark about the exact cause of prolonged power breakdowns, which began on Tuesday night and continued on Wednesday.

Well-placed sources told Dawn that officials at many complaint centres of the power utility concealed facts when they first ‘informed’ the irate consumers that there was an under-frequency operation going on in the city, without so much as bothering to explain what the technical term meant.

“Before long, the complaint centres were asked to tell the consumers that the power utility was carrying out loadshedding for one and a half hours,” they explained.

However, residents calling from different localities of the city said when the power shutdowns lasted more than one and a half hours, the complaint centres started telling them that there were some localized faults that were being attended to.

The KESC did not deem it proper and fit to explain to its consumers on Wednesday why they suffered long-drawn-out power breakdowns even when the weather is so pleasant and the temperature on the low side.

Sources in the centralized complaint centre of the KESC, better known as 118, told Dawn that they had received the highest number of complaints in the current month.

“Localized faults generate a lot of complaints every day but they are attended to by the power utility as a matter of course. But when there is such a massive power breakdown, the number of complaints just shoots up.

The centralized complaint centre does not give complaint numbers to consumers in those cases when an entire area is facing a power breakdown.”

Calling from PECHS, Block 2, resident Kabir Ali said power failures started in his locality around eight o’clock on Tuesday night. “The sad part of the story is that the main power failure was preceded by many sharp voltage swings. Though the refrigerator was connected with a stabiliser, they both broke down without a whimper. I asked my family members to switch off other electronic gadgets before we had another voltage swing. The next moment, the television set went out.”

Mr Ali lamented that in one night the KESC had inflicted a huge loss on him in a matter of minutes.

A resident calling from Gulshan-i-Iqbal, Block 5, said he had a pleasant experience. “I called 118 the moment we lost power supply. The telephone attendant said that because loadshedding was on, the locality would get electricity in one and a half hour. We, instead, got electricity in five minutes. But the point is why there is no coordination between the KESC operations centre and the complaint centre.”

Calling from North Karachi, Sector 11-A, near Sanober Cottages, a resident said his complaint centre wanted to know the plot number from the residents of apartments in order to register a complaint. “Most apartment dwellers do not know what their plot number is. Now, the problem is that it is difficult to find an electricity bill in the dark in the event of a power breakdown. The complaint centre refuses to even register a complaint if a caller is unable to tell them the plot number. The KESC should relax this rule in the case of apartment dwellers.”

A resident of North Nazimabad, Block H, said that his locality had lost electricity around 10pm. “The power supply was restored around 2am. This spell could not have been loadshedding because according to the complaint centre the loadshedding was carried out only for one and a half hours.”