Electricity crisis in the city has worsened with numerous suburbs of the metropolis totally deprived of electricity amid the claims of Karachi Electricity Supply Company that power supply in 22 grid stations out of 61 has been restored on Sunday. Five transmission lines of KESC (Karachi Electric Supply Company) had already tripped yesterday night, while the 500KV transmission line of Jamshoro also tripped in early hours of Sunday affecting two 220KV and three 132KV lines depriving the citizens of 650 MW electricity generated by NTDC, silencing 20 out of city’s 64 grid stations. The hapless citizens spent a sleepless night, while they also faced great difficulty in preparing and having their sehri. Many areas like I I Chundrigar Road, Burns Road, PIDC, Akhtar Colony and others were among the victims of this latest ‘outages outrage’. Intermittent tripping of transmission lines has been attributed to constant wetting by dew, while the KESC, which has imposed an emergency in its main control room(s), besides summoning all its personnel to restore electricity, has apologized for the inconvenience. Meanwhile, Governor Dr Ishrat-al-Ibad has given strict directives to the KESC officials to restore the electricity supply to the city at the earliest. Meanwhile, the KESC spokesperson has said the power supply to 22 grid stations out of 61 has been restored. He said work was progress to restore the electricity to the rest of the areas on emergency basis. He said that 500 megawatt Jamshoro transmission line to Karachi had also been restored. However‚ the city is facing a shortage of 650 megawatts. A number of localities in Karachi plunged into darkness last night following a breakdown of power supply system of KESC. The situation developed when 22 grid stations tripped because of humidity in the main transmission lines. According to Karachi Electric Supply Company (KESC) spokesman KESC’s two Extra High Tension (EHT) circuits of 220 KV and three lines of 132 KV, carrying electricity from Bin Qasim power plant tripped at around 9:20 pm. As a result, he said, power supply to 23 of 64 grid stations and Dhabeji pumping station had been suspended, leaving almost all the city into darkness. Grid stations of Qayum Abad, Jacob Line, Garden East, Korangi East, Malir, Shah Faisal and Civil Aviation tripped due to a major technical fault in Bin Qasim power plant circuit, the spokesman said, adding that teams had been dispatched for the repair work on emergency basis.
