KARACHI, May 8: Despite a slight decrease in temperature, which fell to 34.5 degrees centigrade on Wednesday, the Karachi Electric Supply Corporation failed to prevent prolonged power shutdowns from occurring all over the city.

Sources in the KESC told Dawn that complaints of intermittent power breakdowns had been received from North Nazimabad, Gulshan-i-Iqbal, Defence, Clifton, Shabbirabad, Federal B Area, Bangalore Town, PECHS, Sindhi Muslim Society, Gulistan-i- Jauhar, Saddar, Garden East, North Karachi, New Karachi, Society and Garden West.

Calling from Shabbirabad, Sara Mohsin told Dawn her locality had been without electricity since 11am on Thursday. “Don’t you think it is criminal on the part of the KESC to deprive us of power so long? My elderly mother is a heart patient, and she has been writhing in agony since yesterday. I feel like setting all these pole-mounted transformers of the KESC on fire,” she gave vent to her feelings.

Mohammad Dawood, calling from the same area, said his locality had also been without electricity since 11am yesterday.

Saqib Hussain called from Bangalore Town at 6.30pm and told Dawn that his locality had been without electricity since 5am.

A resident of Saddar told Dawn that his area had been facing intermittent power closures since morning.

Calling from DHA, Phase 6, Khayaban-i-Muslim, a resident said his locality had faced a 30-hour-long power shutdown.

“We pay a huge amount as bills every month. If we do not pay bills, the KESC takes punitive action against us and disconnects our power supply. But if the KESC fails to deliver power to us, we cannot do anything,” he said.

Another resident of the same area, Mahmood Hasan, told Dawn that his locality was fairly isolated. “We have installed a security system which runs on electricity. Last night, some burglars tried to break into our house knowing that the security system was not working,” he said.

Calling from North Nazimabad, Block L, a resident told Dawn that the power supply to her area had been restored at 12 last night. “We had a power breakdown at 3am. It was a localized fault because there was electricity in other houses. When I lodged my complaint, the KESC official laughed at me for lodging a complaint of a localized fault when there were so many complaints of massive power breakdowns,” she said.

Another resident of North Nazimabad, Block H, said his locality had experienced power shutdowns all night long.

“We had so many power shutdowns that finally my refrigerator broke down. The response of our regional complaint centre was the same. They said there was some cable fault in the area that they had detected. I wonder why it took them so long to remove the cable fault.”

A resident of Gulshan-i-Iqbal, Block 4-A, said his locality had faced a two-hour-long power shutdown after 1am last night.

A resident of Gulistan-i-Jauhar, Block 17, told Dawn his locality had faced a power shutdown early in the day which had not yet been rectified by the KESC.

When contacted, a KESC spokesman said that because of overloading a large number of cable faults had developed. “During summers, people tend to use more power load than they are officially allocated. Overloading results in cable faults which could take one to eight hours to be removed, depending on how quickly the fault is located and rectified.”

He denied that the KESC was resorting to unannounced loadshedding. “Why would we resort to loadshedding when the power demand and supply equation is balanced. These days the maximum power demand in the city is 1850 megawatts. We have the same amount of electricity at our disposal.”

He said another reason of a recent power breakdown was an under-frequency operation. “The KESC receives electricity from various sources: Bin Qasim power plant, Korangi Thermal power plant, independent power producers and Water and Power Development Authority. If there is any disturbance in one of these sources, the power frequency is changed which results in tripping of a large number of feeders. Now, these feeders are re- activated manually — a process which takes up a lot of time.”

Qamar Ali rang up from Asif Colony, Pak Colony complaining that there had been no electricity in his area from 11am. He said that children had been crying owing to non-availability of electricity.