Classes at the University of Karachi (KU) remained suspended on Thursday and Friday because of relentless electricity outages. The students expressed concern over their education being affected due to the ongoing dispute between the Karachi Electric Supply Company (KESC) administration and labour union, causing record power outages at the varsity.
Electricity supply to the university was cut off on Thursday around 2:30 pm. Due to the extremely hot weather, the teachers of evening classes have avoided taking classes, whereas the students have boycotted classes since Thursday evening. On Friday, when students of the morning shift arrived at KU, they realised they had wasted their time because power supply to the varsity had not been restored.
“I was up last night working on my presentation, but when I arrived at the university today all the way from Gulshan-e-Hadeed, I felt like I had wasted one and a half hours because teachers weren’t taking any classes,” BS student Sana told Pakistan Today. As electricity remained suspended, fuel supply of the alternative generators was eventually exhausted and the entire administration block was closed down after the Friday prayer.
A large number of students had to face difficulties, whereas some of them were at the varsity for documentation, but all of them had to return home disappointed. A group of students sitting at a university canteen said that the KESC was testing the patience of the citizens. “It’s scorching hot this summer and they have not been able to restore electricity since yesterday. That’s incompetence!” one of the students said.
Classmates Sana and Rida said, “If we had the slightest idea that there would be no electricity at the university, in this scorching heat, we would’ve stayed home.” Danish said, “A few months ago, the KESC had signed a Memorandum of Understanding with KU, stating that there will be no load shedding at the university. I think the KESC was bluffing.”
KU Public Relations Officer Qamar Rizvi said that the administration had contacted the KESC regarding the issue, and that their engineers had traced out the problem. “They have detected a cable fault at the varsity, but refused to resolve it due to the strike,” he added. According to him, the KU engineers were trying to resolve the problem. However, they had not succeeded until the filing of this report.
KESC spokesperson Aminur Rehman said “I am not aware of such a situation. Although our team would have visited the university if there such an issue,” adding that he would personally look into the matter and ensure that power supply to KU is restored soon.