KARACHI, Aug 29: As angry people took to the streets over prolonged power outages on Thursday night, the privatized management of the Karachi Electric Supply Company on Friday admitted that despite foreknowledge of short supply of gas for the past three months, it saved on furnace oil and operated the Bin Qasim Thermal Power Plant much below the rated capacity, which caused massive power outages and had an adverse impact on trade and industry, along with causing power riots.
According to sources, this emerged during a briefing to Speaker of the Sindh Assembly Nisar Khuhro, Pakistan People’s Party leader Taj Haider and Sindh Minister for Industries Rauf Siddiqui, who joined them later.
The briefing was forced on the KESC’s privatized management amid mounting public outrage over prolonged power outages and the indifferent attitude of the foreign management of the utility and absence of its top management during this turmoil.
Mr Shaan Ashare, the representative of Al Jomaih, the current owner of the KESC, was present at the briefing to give his side of the story which, according to sources, was mostly based on false promises. It is not known whether he was asked to take responsibility for the damages to the domestic, industrial and commercial consumers.
When he was confronted by the media about the absence of the CEO, he was least concerned about the situation and claimed he was monitoring developments taking place every minute.
Mr Khuhro told Dawn that during the meeting KESC representatives admitted they were not operating Bin Qasim at its optimum capacity because they were saving on furnace oil. Output was far below requirement because of shortage of gas and less use of furnace oil. He said that KESC representatives could not explain why they could not take contingency measures when they were aware of the gas shortage and why they remained unconcerned about their contractual agreement with clients.
The speaker said that KESC representatives admitted they had prior knowledge for about three months that gas supply would remain short due to maintenance by the gas company. He said the utility admitted that it could have generated 100 megawatts extra if proper measures had been taken and furnace oil was used to increase generation.
Mr Khuhro said the KESC management has assured that power supply would be improved and hoped that by September 5 or 6 load-shedding would be drastically reduced to not more than 200 MW.
500 MW shortfall
While giving a briefing on the KESC’s plans, the representative claimed that a 230 MW plant has been installed and projects for 1,000 MW were in the pipeline. But he could not explain why the utility has not been able to arrange generating plants on rental and commission the promised generating plant at Bin Qasim, despite the crisis and loss to Pakistan’s economy as well as the power riots.
On Friday, the KESC faced a 500 MW shortfall for meeting demand of power supply in the city. On Thursday, the peak demand was 2,170 megawatts.
Every residential and commercial area of the city was subjected to more than four hours of load-shedding after every hour. There was electricity for hardly six to seven hours during the past 24 hours, which enraged people in many areas and forced them to come out on the streets.
Residents of blocks 1, 5, and 13-D of Gulshan-i-Iqbal are supposedly among the worst sufferers of the lingering power crisis as they are deprived of electricity for a prolonged duration. For instance, there had been no electricity in the locality from 9.30pm on Thursday till 11.30am on Friday.
Bin Qasim Thermal Station was generating 680 MW instead of the desired 1,160 MW electricity output.
Unit no 4 of the Korangi Thermal Power Plant is yet to be restored while there has been no power supply input from the Korangi Gas Turbines of the KESC for a couple of days. Power generation from the Defence Cogen plant has been revived after several days and on Friday the KESC’s power supply system received just 20 MW from the desalination plant. There has been no power generation from the Karachi Nuclear Power Plant since August 22.
It is worth mentioning that load-shedding of prolonged durations has been plaguing the lives of the citizens despite constant supply support of around 500 megawatts from Wapda through the national grid.
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