KARACHI, July 28: The reason why the transmission and distribution system of the Karachi Electric Supply Corporation fails to withstand the vagaries of the weather is that it is not cleaned and overhauled on a regular basis.

High-ranking KESC officials told Dawn on Sunday that the power cables connecting feeders with generating stations should be cleaned every four months. “Because our system is primitive, it has to be switched off so that it can be cleaned manually.

Now there is always such a shortage of electricity that we fail to switch off our precious few feeders so that the transmission and distribution system could be overhauled. As a result, the entire network becomes vulnerable to sudden changes in the weather.”

They added that with only 781 feeders and 7,800 substations or distribution transformers, the power utility could not supply electricity to its more than 1.7 million consumers in an uninterrupted manner.

Experts maintain that one feeder, as a rule of thumb, could at best handle 3.2 megawatts. “The 781 feeders of the KESC are capable of handling 2,500 megawatts or thereabouts. The maximum power demand of the city in sweltering summers is well above 1,800 megawatts. This is not enough because in the hot weather chances of breakdowns also increase,” they point out.

The KESC officials said that an in-house workshop carried out the repair of the equipment when it broke down.

They added that the power utility installed as many new feeders and distribution transformers every four months as its budget allowed.

They stressed that as more residential areas turned into commercial areas with the connivance of the Karachi Builders Control Authority, the power utility found it difficult to provide electricity to the entire city.

Well-placed sources told Dawn on Sunday that commercial centres in Clifton, Defence, Bahadurabad, Garden, PECHS, North Nazimabad (Hyderi) and those along Sharea Faisal would be plagued by electricity woes as the power utility infrastructure in these areas had been primarily planned to cater to the needs of residential units.

“When these areas were being planned out, and their maps existed only on paper, we had been given to understand that they would be residential areas with a commercial centre, such as a shopping plaza, in the vicinity. We laid our infrastructure accordingly. Much to our consternation, these areas underwent a complete transformation and became fully-fledged commercial hubs of the city.”

The sources added that in order to become well-equipped enough to meet the electricity requirements of these areas, the cash-strapped power utility would have to pump a great deal of money into the infrastructure.

“Even if by some miracle the money became available, the process of infrastructure upgrade would take a long time.”

KESC officials said a lack of coordination between several civic agencies was responsible for such anomalies.

“In some localities, industrial areas are indistinguishable from residential areas. The power utility has had to fritter away resources setting up an infrastructure robust enough to meet the electricity requirements of an industrial area where a large number of residential blocks also exist,” they explained.

They admitted that even if the commercial areas were left alone, the KESC was not able to meet the power requirements of an ever-extending city like Karachi.