LESCO, WASA unable to handle rain

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  • Rain on Sunday jammed LESCO’s power system, and flooded the city’s roads due to WASA’s poor drainage, revealing the inefficiency of the city authorities.

Early morning rain on Sunday led to the collapse of the Lahore Electricity Supply Company (LESCO)’s power system, suspending power supply to most of the city.

According to LESCO officials, as many as 45 grid stations of the company tripped owing to rain, suspending power supply to many areas of the city for almost 6 hours, causing great inconvenience to the citizens as the Water and Sanitation Authority (WASA)’s tube-wells also stopped functioning without electricity, leading to a water shortage.

This incident has exposed LESCO’s inability to fulfill the government’s promises of uninterrupted electricity supply to the masses during Ramadan, which does not augur well for the heat stricken masses.

Further, WASA’s dire situation was also revealed. In addition to nonfunctional tube-wells due to electricity shortage, WASA’s tall claims for making comprehensive drainage arrangements during the monsoon spell also proved hollow as low lying areas of the city were completely inundated by rain water. The situation was particularly bad in northern parts of Lahore including Badami Bagh, Shad Bagh, Misri Shah, Gowalmandi, Nisbat Road, Bhati Chowk, Fleming Road and Multan Road. Rain water flooded the city’s roads for many hours, causing traffic jams and great inconvenience to citizens despite the fact that the number of disposal stations in the city had been doubled.

However, every cloud has a silver lining. The rainfall also provided welcome relief from the hot and humid weather.

5mm of rainfall was recorded in the city at 6 30am on Sunday, making the weather pleasant. Lahorites found this an opportunity to squeeze in moments of pleasure into the terrible summer, thronging to the city’s parks and recreational sites including Minar-e-Pakistan, Lawrence Gardens, Race Course Park, Model Town Park, River Ravi, Jahangir’s Tomb and Jallo Park. Families and children were seen enjoying the brief weather change by frolicking outdoors well into the evening, despite the fact that the temperature had risen by the afternoon.

According to the Meteorological Department, the wet spell would continue for three days in Punjab‘s cities including Lahore. The maximum temperature recorded on Sunday was 37 degrees Celsius while the minimum was 30 with 84 per cent humidity in the morning which decreased to 70 per cent in the evening.

In the coming days, mainly hot and humid weather is expected in most parts of the country. However, rain-thunderstorms associated with dusty winds are expected in isolated places of upper Punjab (Rawalpindi, Gujranwala, Lahore, and Sargodha divisions), upper Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (Malakand, Hazara divisions), Southeastern Sindh (Mirpur Khas division) and Kashmir.

1 COMMENT

  1. The lazy and corrupted staff members of LESCO and WASA are trying their best to fail the PMLN`s promises to give relief to general public in full swing.NO CO-OPERATION FROM THESE TWO AUTHORITIES TO GENERAL PUBLIC AS NO HEAVY RAINS SO FAR,WHO WILL CARE IN HEAVIER RAINS?GOVERNMENT CANNOT DO ANYTHING BY GIVING VERBAL ORDERS FROM THE GLASSES PALACES.

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