At a time when mercury was on rise in the country, massive fluctuation of electricity, unprecedented tripping and unannounced loadshedding were adding miseries to the people, while the electricity consumers also have to bear a loss of estimated Rs one billion per month.
According to a survey conducted by Business Recorder here, on Saturday, commercial, industrial, domestic and other consumers of Wapda were facing severe low-voltage problem. This situation has increased the business of those companies, which were dealing in repairing electric equipment as well as those companies, which deal in manufacturing of UPS.
Senior officials of Hybrid Technics (Pvt) Ltd, confirmed that a number of electric equipment were damaged due to power fluctuation while low-power supply had increased significantly. Losses caused by inefficiency of the Wapda are equipment damage, productivity loss and loss occurred due to delay in meeting export commitments.
A commercial consumer of the Wapda said that cost of electricity had increased to Rs 20 per unit during the load shedding hours, as whole staff remained idle in the absence of electricity. "Only a minor tripping caused wastage of precious time of those textile units, which have not proper back up facilities, said a textile industrial whose unit is situated at Sheikhupura-Faisalabad road.
Muhammad Iftikhar, a senior Engineer of Service Wing of a leading company told Business Recorder that only in Lahore, thousands of split units were affected due to massive increase in low-voltage complaints. This situation had badly hit export industry that was complaining that power fluctuation; load shedding and low-voltage was increasing cost of production of various businesses.
Recently, a Pakistani company, which deals in the manufacturing of spare parts of weaving machines, had sent a sophisticated machine to Japan, which was damaged due to power fluctuation. 'We have prepared UPS worth Rs 600,000 for a company just to check losses caused by power fluctuations", said an official of Hybrid Technics (pvt) Ltd. Independent Energy experts are of the view that "if we want to ensure uninterrupted power supply, power generation capacity of a system must be 20 percent more than the electricity demand."
The sources in the Wapda are of the view that the organisation had failed to meet the growing demand of electricity due to low-voltage problem. At present, Wapda system was experiencing low-voltage problem. "Not only at 132 kV lines but also at 11 kV lines, voltage supply is less than the required level, therefore, Wapda was unable to overcome the problem of less voltage', said an Executive Engineer of the Lesco.
He said that in Lahore City, a number of grid stations were required to take some steps to overcome low-voltage problem but no practical steps were taken in this regard during the last many years.
He said that increase in electricity consumption was also a major factor of low-voltage problem.
Mohsin Syed, an Electrical Engineer said that the electricity demand in the country was likely to rise to 25000-MW after next five years. The unfortunate dimension of the present situation was that Wapda authorities were not willing to accept the gravity of the problem, he added. When contacted, Member (Power) Wapda, Chaudhry Anwar Khalid said that the Wapda was not resorting to load shedding in the country.
'Wapda has sufficient power generation capacity, as on Friday, the demand of electricity in Wapda system was 12469 MW as against power generation of 12953 MW. Reports regarding power fluctuation/low-voltage were being received from all over the country, but the situation was terrible in rural areas where no body turn up for redressal of the electricity complaints.
It seems Wapda's customer service standard was poor in big cities and consumer complaints were on rise. A consumer of Cavalry Ground, Shahzad told Business Recorder that he was receiving 160 volts at his residence instead of 220 volts on Saturday. Despite repeated requests, the phones of Central Complaint Cell of Lesco remained busy. Similarly, XEN and SDO also did not attend their phones.
When the complainant contacted Col Nadim, In charge Chairman Wapda's Complaint Cell, he said that Wapda was suffering from overall system of low-voltage.
His utter reply was that the only solution of these problems was to pray to God.