Season's worst power shortage: Grid supply snaps

By Sarfaraz Ahmed

KARACHI, April 16: The city suffered season's worst power shortage on Monday which triggered massive electricity disruptions throughout the day and into the night. The industrial areas divided into two groups also experienced load shedding for at least two hours and a half each.

The crisis was precipitated by a sudden snapping of supply from the national grid in the afternoon. Monday being a working day, the power demand rose to about 1750mw as against the total available electricity of 1423mw.

But even on Sunday, a non-working day, the KESC resorted to load shedding for long durations.

Though the KANUPP resumed early Monday morning its 60mw supply to Karachi after its absence for the past many days, its contribution was not enough to offset the substantial shortage from Wapda link. The Wapda had supplied 100mw in the morning hours when the city was still facing a deficit of about 86mw.

The KESC officials claim the WAPDA itself is faced with power shortage and areas of Sindh's interior had been suffering from lack of power on this account.

The KESC on Sunday had said that owing to acute power shortage, on Monday, the load shedding duration will be increased by 15 minutes and each group will be shut off for 1.30 hours each.

However, a number of residents from various city areas claimed they had experienced load shedding for much longer than what had been notified by KESC for Monday.

Besides, some of these residents also said the utility agency had not been effecting load shedding in accordance with its schedule.

For example, a resident from Federal B Area's block 14 said his area had been mentioned in group-VI so the load shedding in his area should have been carried out from 7.45pm. But, he added, power remained off in his neighbourhood since 7pm.

This resident, requesting anonymity, said there were around 40 houses in his area which by and large remained unaffected during the load shedding hours. He added that the cluster of those houses included the residences of at least two senior KESC officials.

Some enraged parents and students expressed their concern over the ongoing power crisis. They said the date for the intermediate exams had already been announced, but their studies had remained disturbed for over a month on account of power failures.

Some parents said buying petrol or diesel-powered generators was beyond their means and asked if the crisis would persist for the entire summer.

With increase in temperatures, in-patients in hospitals are feeling highly disturbed. As not all the hospitals have arrangements of backup power supply, the patients in these hospitals appear to be more concerned about the power problem.

Meanwhile, a KESC spokesman said on Monday that the utility agency was facing power shortage of 320mw with the city's expected evening peak power demand touching 1743mw while the total electricity available from distribution system remaining only 1423mw.

A KESC spokesman said on Monday that load shedding in residential, commercial and industrial areas will begin as per already announced schedule at 6.30 p.m with each group to be shut off for one hour and thirty minutes.

The spokesman said power generation at Bin Qasim was 840 mw, Korangi Thermal 125 mw, Korangi and SITE gas turbines 140 mw, IPPs 242 mw, Pakistan Steel 16 mw.

Meanwhile, city industrialists apprised the federal interior minister Moinuddin Haider of the serious power crisis at a function here, saying the problem had hit the industry hard.

Mr Haider told the annual dinner of North Karachi Association of Trade and Industry (NKATI) that the only solution to solve the load shedding problem was privatisation of KESC. The government was taking steps on that direction, he said.

http://www.dawn.com/2001/04/17/nat18.htm

-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), April 17, 2001