Power outages irk Karachiites

The widespread power breakdown in the city has triggered a serious law and order condition in various parts of the city, as enraged citizens attack the Karachi Electric Supply Corporation (KESC) stations and customer centres.
According to details most of the city areas were deprived of electricity since Tuesday night and some of the areas in Gulshan-e-Iqbal, Gulistan-e-Jauhar and Liaquatabad were still without power till the filling of this report.
The unavailability of the utility in these scorching days added to the people woes thereby prompting them to come out on roads. The mob attacked the KESC stations and the customer centres as well as resorted to pelting stones on moving vehicles.
The KESC stations were attacked in Liaquatabad, Gulbahar, Pak Colony, Gulshan-e-Iqbal, Malir and North Karachi. While a station and a customer centre was set on fire in Gulistan-e-Jauhar. Some vehicles were also damaged.
The KESC official informed that the problem occurred due to the breach in extra high-tension (EHT) supply line at Quaid-e-Abad bridge. It is the longest span, as it passes all over the bridge.
Due to this fault the load was shifted to other lines and that resulted in the cables heating up on the other lines and grids due to overloading. This led to tripping of the electric supply. Besides, there were some cable-faults also in Gulshan-e-Iqbal, Liaquatabad and Gulistan-e-Jauhar.
The KESC spokesman said that these cable faults used to take eight to 10 hours to be repaired because the fault needed to be detected before it could be mended.
He further said the faults would be removed and power supply could be restored by Tuesday night but the angry people harassed and attacked the KESC workmen, who returned back.
However, the work was started again on Wednesday morning and electricity to most of the areas had been restored, he said and added that supply to some areas would be restored very shortly.
It was also learnt that there was a shortfall of 60 MW from Wapda on Wednesday morning. The city requires 2250 MW a day while the supply is only 2100 MW. The KESC official informed that there was an average shortfall of 250 MW a day, which was expected to rise during July, which is a peak demand month and the shortfall was expected to touch 350 MW, he added.
To a question, the KESC spokesman said that the supply from Wapda was restricted to 600 MW because the Hubco link could not be established. "If Wapda increases the supply, the problem would be solved to a major extent," he added.