KARACHI, Aug 2: Residents of Karachi endured another day of power outages in the scorching heat as the Karachi Electric Supply Corporation shed 350 megawatts due to various reasons.
The utility is resorting to more than four hours of load-shedding in three cycles during 24 hours, although officially it maintains that load-shedding of only an hour-and-a-half was being carried out.
Massive load-shedding of over three hours thrice during the day enraged the general public and traders as the utility shed 350MW due to depletion in generation, increasing losses in transmission, and massive cable faults due to the failure of the KESC to upgrade its 11 kV system.
There was hardly any area of the city from where Dawn did not receive frantic calls to inquire why they were being subjected to this hardship in the scorching heat.
Power failures were reported from Akhtar Colony, Garden, Gulberg, Sharfabad, North Nazimabad, Surjani Town, North Karachi and Gulistan-i-Jauhar, while faults remained unattended.
People also complained of low voltage and the outage of phases, while it was also reported that the KESC was not attending telephone calls on ‘118’ and other designated complaint centre numbers.
Irshad Ali, resident of 38/5, Jutland Main Bazaar, said he has lodged several complaints with the utility during the past week but no one has attended to his problem. He said he is without electricity, though expecting hefty bills.
Residents of Gulberg complained that they were experiencing low voltage and the outage of phases for several days, but no one was coming to their rescue.
When they got hold of a KESC representative on the phone, they were told that the PMT needed reinforcement and the utility did not have the required material.
Meanwhile, the Chairman of the Alliance of Market Associations Karachi, Atiq Mir, strongly criticised the KESC for continuing prolonged power load-shedding in over 40 markets of Aram Bagh.
In a statement he said that electricity was being provided to this area only for three to four hours during the day, while people had been compelled to pass sleepless nights.
He said that load-shedding had made the lives of residents and shopkeepers miserable and they were now considering taking to the streets in protest against the unjustified power outages.
In view of the failure of the KESC to ensure proper power supply, the traders were planning a meeting next week to devise a strategy against load-shedding, adding they had also apprised the KESC authorities about the problems.
He blamed the utility for serious business losses and claimed the customers were avoiding coming to the markets due to power outages. As a result their business was down by almost 60 per cent, he claimed.
The KESC was on Wednesday forced to keep its gas turbines at Site and Korangi closed during the day because of short supply of gas from the Sui Southern Gas Company, due to delay in clearance of its dues.
According to sources the KESC CEO had met the SSGC chief to iron out the issue.
He had also made some payment to the gas company for maintaining the supply schedule.
Closure of the two gas turbines had caused the shortage of about 150 megawatts. According to sources at 2pm the utility was shedding about 300 MW as the demand for electricity had reached 2,224 MW and the available supply was only to the tune of 2,024 MW.