LAHORE, July 26: Electricity supply interruptions in the Walled City kept testing people’s patience and technical acumen of officials of the Lahore Electric Supply Company (Lesco), as the former took to the street and the latter climbed the poles.

For the last four days, residents of the Walled City have been suffering more frequent power outages than the rest of the city for a combination of technical factors. Inside the Walled City is a, what is technically known as constraints area, where it is hard to supply electricity even when available.

“Since it is a very congested area, power cables crisscross the entire Walled City, it is very easy for the people to connect to double source supply,” explains a local official. If electricity is gone from one source, people immediately switch to the other one, overloading it grossly and triggering a chain reaction. This habit comes on the top of bad health of the distribution system
in the Walled City. This is precisely what has been causing problem for the last so many days, he said.

On Thursday, company officials had to change cables, jumpers and connectors for the most parts, says local sub-division officer. Almost 50 per cent of the gadgets were replaced and the rest would be replaced on Friday, solving the supply problem for the next few years, he claimed.

“These are worst days for the Walled City dwellers,” says a resident of the area. Twelve hours of loadshedding have become a
routine. But when power is missing for 18 hours in this hot and hugely humid weather, one tends to lose patience. That is exactly what has been happening in the Walled City ever since monsoon and humidity hit the city. It doubled people’s miseries and their patience wore thin and people started protesting at the slightest provocation, he said. “Lesco needs to think why it waits for people’s protest to move into action. It knows the condition of distribution lines better than anyone else, why it does
not start replacing these cables, jumpers and connectors before protests and popular anger?” he asks.