Following countrywide power shortage, the Water and Power Regulatory Authority (Wapda) has reduced its supply to Karachi to 300 MW, making the power crisis of the city more severe.
Sources told Business Recorder here on Tuesday that Wapda, instead of providing up to 700 MW to Karachi, has restricted its supply to Karachi Electric Supply Corporation (KESC) to 300 MW.
The Wapda has to supply electricity to KESC 450 MW from 1:00 am to 8:00 pm, and 700 MW from 8:00 pm to 01:00 am. But now, since January 4, the Authority has reduced its supply to 300 MW round the clock, turning power crisis in Karachi more severe, sources said.
As a result, the KESC has around 1470 MW power supply against its demand of 1660 MW. To overcome this generation shortfall of about 190 MW, the Corporation has been carrying on 2-3 hours long rotational load shedding in different areas of the city, sources said.
"The Corporation is compelled to resort to longer period load shedding because of this unannounced cut in supply by Wapda", a KESC official said. The city's power crisis could become more severe if the Authority further reduced its supply, or any unforeseen fault occurred in the generation system of the corporation, he added.
But, Wapda only is not responsible for the power shortage in the city as KESC engineers have failed to restore the shut down generating unit at Bin Qasim Power Station of capacity 170 MW at its target date of resumption.
Unit No 3 at BQPS had gone out of bar for about 30 days from December 4, 2007 for annual overhauling and maintenance and was expected to resume functioning on January 4, 2008. But the unit had not been made to resume functioning till the filing of this report.
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