KARACHI, May 11: There was no let-up in power outages in different parts of the city on Friday and reports suggest that the situation remained more or less the same as it was on Thursday as the utility applied load-shedding to the tune of 200MW to meet the demand of 2,200 MW during day time.
According to sources, the KESC carried out two-hour load-shedding in each zone on a rotation basis before sunset on Friday.
Meanwhile, residents of different parts of Defence and Clifton complained of frequent power outages of long duration.
Callers from the Defence View Phase-I, II and III said that power went off at around 9am and was not restored for a moment till 11pm. They condemned the KESC, Wapda and the government for their indifferent attitude towards the consumers’ plight, saying that no one would even bother to attend desperate consumers’ phone calls at the concerned complaint centre. The KESC staff wound not even tell those visiting the complaint centre that how many hours more they would have to wait for the restoration of the electricity supply.
Most of them repeatedly asked why the KESC was not stopping this horrible treatment to its consumers.
“Is there anyone in this country who can pull them up? We hear a lot of sermons about development and improvement in the quality of life, but who will believe them after what we experience every day in this city? They just don’t care about the people. It is all politics,” said a disgusted housewife speaking from Phase VI, Defence, because she was experiencing power outage for several hours in different cycles since 12.30am.
In a late night distress call, a mother of three young children, Mrs Ghaznavi, broke down while complaining against the KESC’s “inhuman” attitude. She was weeping when she rang up Dawn to inform that her six-month old child was feeling dehydrated due to the excessive heat and power outage. “Where should I take my children to protect them from this killing heat?” she asked, accusing the KESC complaint centres of not responding to her phone calls. Another woman said that if they can leave streetlights on during the day, why can’t they provide us electricity? But perhaps she was not aware that the KESC had not invested in the generation and distribution network, hence the breakdown.
A caller, Riaz Burney from Gulistan-i-Jauhar, Block 15, said that his area suffered power outages five to six times daily, lasting up to 10 hours.
“The power supply went off at 11pm and I don’t know when it will come on,” he said, adding that people did not know which outage was a breakdown and which one was the result of load-shedding. Meanwhile, the KESC has announced power shutdown schedule for Sunday (May 13) to facilitate testing of its new High Voltage 132 KV GIS Bays at KDA Scheme Grid Station.
According to the announcement, power supply may be interrupted between 6:30am and 10:30am in Surjani Town, Site area, Orangi Town, Al-Hira Pumping Station, Disco Morr Pumping Station, Federal B Area, KDA Pumping Station, Gulistan-i-Jauhar, Gulshan-i-Iqbal, Nazimabad, North Nazimabad, Banaras Pumping Station, Liaquatabad, PWD Pumping Station-I, North Karachi and Khwaja Ajmer Nagri Pumping Station.
On the same day, the KESC management will carry out system improvement work on 30 MVA Transformer No 2 at Elander Road Grid Station. Power supply would be suspended from 9am to 3pm to Rimpa Plaza, Tibet Centre, KESC Computer Building, Sindh Secretariat, Shaheen Complex, Sindhi Muslim Society-II, etc.