Masses groan at unscheduled loadshedding

Residents of the affected areas said the long duration load-shedding had ruined their life and destroyed their businesses. Ahmed Jamal, who runs a photo lab on Adiala Road, remarked that IESCO switched off electricity whenever they liked and they had to suffer great losses in their business.

Some people also complained that this unvarying power cuts had forced the people to buy hand fans and candles, symbols of old dark ages in this era of space and nuclear technology.  

The power cuts are also badly affecting the traffic signals resulting in the long traffic jams and long queues of vehicles could be witnessed on all the major roads.

People said that they often lodged their complaints with IESCO authorities but nothing happened to the plight of residents.

Talking to The Nation, IESCO Chief Operations Engineer Faqir Mohammad informed that faulty generators at Lalpur and Uch grid stations were not only causing inconvenience to the residents of Rawalpindi and Islamabad, but also those of Lahore, Faisalabad, Multan, Gujranwala and Gujrat.

He said IESCO engineers were working round the clock to rectify the fault. IESCO Adyala Road Sub-Division Officer (SDO) Mohammad Rafiq said the long duration of load-shedding at Tariqabad, Dhamyal Road and Adyala Road was due to a fire at the Kamalabad grid station last year.

He said IESCO was setting up a new grid station at Chakri Road that would be completed by the end of September, adding that after the rectification of the fault, those areas would have routine load- shedding.

The SDO said at Adyala Road, the six to seven-hour load-shedding in the morning was due to the shifting of power poles. He said the poles were being shifted due to the road’s widening.

People demanded that the Government should take urgent measures to control the menace and provide a sigh of relief in the near future.

Report from Karachi: The hours-long unscheduled loadshedding continued to create serious problems for the people in Karachi on Friday when several areas remained without electricity.

In some parts of the city, the consumers had to suffer repeatedly from two-hours long loadshedding after every two hours that paralysed normal life in the city. The power scarcity has increased up to 800 MWs and the citizens remained without electricity while the duration of loadshedding has reached to 12 hours.

The power shortage deepens as Unit 1 and 3 at Bin Qasim Power Plant remained non-functional. The actual quantity of electricity available from Bin Qasim was 645MWs on Friday. The operations at KANUP, Korangi Gas Turbines, Korangi Thermal and DHA distribution also remained suspended.

All areas in the city suffered due to this unscheduled power outage. Consumers told that they were facing worst kind loadshedding due to a decline in power-generation capacity of the KESC while neither federal nor the provincial government had taken this issue seriously.

Meanwhile, Speaker Sindh Assembly Nisar Khuhro and Taj Haidar met the KESC high officials and expressed deep concern regarding the miserable condition of loadshedding in the city. The authorities assured the delegation that this bleak situation would be resolved in a few days.

The consumers maintained that long duration of loadshedding coupled with inflated electricity bills was a cruel joke with the people.

Sources said that hike in tariff could further inflate the utility bills by 40 per cent.

People have demanded that the government should take effective steps towards overcoming power shortage by increasing generation.

On the other hand, KESC has not spent even a penny in power-generating sector after its privatisation. Resultantly, the gap between the supply and has widened sharply during the recent months.

The business activities have also been badly affected due to hours-long and unscheduled loadshedding.

People have demanded the provision of smooth and uninterrupted power supply in order to provide relief to the industrial sector.

Meanwhile, the KESC officials have blamed WAPDA and the SSGC for unprecedented loadshedding in Karachi, while the concerned authorities of these two departments held the KESC administration responsible for this nasty situation.