KARACHI, May 10: Angry people took to the streets against the widespread power breakdowns in the city on Thursday.

Power outages were experienced across Karachi as all the four 220 kilovolt circuits supplying 650 megawatts from the National Transmission and Dispatch Company to the Karachi Electric Supply Company tripped on Thursday, producing a cascading effect on the power utility’s generation and distribution system.

The tripping of the NTDC links coincided with the widespread protest against loadshedding in Punjab. While the issue of tripping of the NTDC links was being debated, angry people from many areas of Karachi, who had been without power supply since early morning, hit the roads chanting slogans against the KESC management and the government for not fulfilling its responsibility in dealing with the issue of loadshedding.

KESC consumers suffered in the hot weather throughout the day. Malir, Landhi, Gulshan-i-Iqbal, Gulistan-i-Johar, FB Area, Lyari, North Karachi, North Nazimabad, Korangi, Orangi, Landhi, Mahmoodabad, Akhtar Colony, Qayumabad and adjoining areas were the worst hit by the prolonged outages. Residents of these areas complained that they had been without electricity for more than eight hours. Students appearing in various examinations were badly affected as was the case with the domestic consumers.

Karachiites have been experiencing fluctuations along with unscheduled/unannounced loadshedding for one reason or another for about a week now and yet there has been no serious effort in finding a lasting solution to the problem.

Frequent and prolonged outages and fluctuations in the KESC’s system has also affected the city’s water supply, especially for apartment dwellers. Water supply in many areas remained suspended due to the impact of the power outages on pumping stations.

The situation became even more complicated when supply of 80MW from the Karachi Nuclear Power Plant also remained suspended due to the sudden breakdown at about 5pm, which was said to be because of low frequency in the NTDC system that hindered operation in many KESC plants.

Low frequency at the NTDC end, according to the KESC spokesman, destabilised the KESC’s system, resulting in a breakdown in many areas during the past few days. However, the situation improved to some extent in the evening as the KESC synchronized with the NTDC at about 6.45pm.

But while the KESC gave its own reasons for the prolonged outages, the public was not convinced about their truthfulness because they had been experiencing outages since early in the day whereas the tripping of the NTDC links occurred in the evening only.

They said had the KESC increased self-generation, it would have reduced its dependence on the NTDC supply, and the problem would not have persisted. Traders and other consumers alleged that the KESC was not using furnace oil while relying solely on natural gas and cheap supply from the NTDC instead. They accused the KESC for not generating electricity according to its available capacity.

It was pointed out that KESC’s generation capacity was 2,450 megawatts and the people would not have suffered so badly had the power utility been using furnace oil to allow its plants to operate to their optimum capacity.

The persistent outages in the city have resulted in the closure of industry and increasing unemployment due to layoffs, in turn exacerbating the critical law and order situation in the city.