The persistent electricity unavailability in several areas, particularly in the old city area, due to major faults in the supply system has scaled down 30 percent trade and business activities, besides stirring up violent protests, traders said on Wednesday.
"Small traders also joined the protests against power stoppages for about two weeks in several markets of the city for strikes of workers of the only electricity supplier," said President of Old City Traders Alliance, Jamil Paracha.
He said that the private power supplier--KESC--was uninterested in heeding the traders' complaints regarding repairing faults in the supply system, and accused the company of causing financial losses to traders. "Complaint centres are closed down, while a group of non-strike workers of the company is creating faults in the lines and transformers to cut electricity to residential and commercial users and then demanding thousands of rupees for fault repairs," he alleged.
Paracha demanded of the government to reverse the company's privatisation immediately and run its affairs properly, besides restoring power to the entire city. He observed that half of the metropolis had fallen in the dark for lack of power in the wake of unresolved faults in the electricity supply lines.
He pointed that small traders were the utmost sufferers from the present chaos in the private power company emerged from its retrenchment plan and announced to relieve over 4,000 workers. He warned that small traders were left with no options other than going out for protests, even violently, and urged the company's high-ups to solve the public issues without further delay. He also threatened to surround the company's head office and stage a protest sit-in there, unless electricity was restored to the affected areas.
He said that the residential areas were nearing scarcity of potable water for the present electricity crisis in the city, saying a huge problem could hit the other parts in the concerned authority did not respond timely to solve the matter. "Traders are planning a strike against the power stoppage if the company did not restore electricity to the affected parts of the city," President Old City Traders Alliance gave a deadline.
He estimated that traders were suffering million of rupees losses a day and with each passing day their financial conditions were getting worse for the lack of impetus in business activities due to power cut. Chairman of All Karachi Tajir Ittehad, Muhammad Atiq, said that cases of theft in the city had surged by 10 percent since the fresh power cut had hit the metropolis. He said that KESC would itself suffer millions of rupees losses for the lack of recovery of bills from areas where electricity supply had been cut for two weeks.