A number of areas remained without electricity for hours as the power crisis worsened on Saturday. Electricity in many areas including Mughalpura, Baghanpura, Garhi Shahu, Dharampura, Township, Ichchra, Ghaziabad and others witnessed outages for up to 18 hours. Electricity was closed in a majority of areas. Lahore Electric Supply Company (LESCO) officials switched-off their mobiles while landlines were engaged putting consumers in further pain. Overnight rain was another reason for the breakdown of electricity. LESCO sources said that the power distribution system of the city is very weak and collapses with a few showers. They said that in routine days, LESCO closes electricity to repair the distribution system but still it is not strong enough to face thunderstorms. “Rains in the city mean closure of electricity for hours, as technical problems in grid stations and faults in transmission lines take hours to repair,” an official said.
Residents of these areas expressed dissatisfaction with LESCO’s performance saying that incompetence of the company costs them a lot. “After paying huge bills, we get long hours of load shedding in return and if there is rain, electricity is switched off for good,” Ahmed Habib, a resident of Baghbanpura said adding that if a light rain becomes so dangerous for LESCO, then what will happen in monsoons. Another consumer Jameel Akhtar said that he could not sleep during the whole night because of closure of electricity. “There were six hours of closure and our UPS stops working after two hours and we could not sleep for the whole night,” he said adding that when he called office of LESCO, the line was engaged while numbers of LESCO officials were switched off. “We could not know that what is the fault and when it will be removed,” Akhter lamented.
Besides long hours of technical closures, load shedding continued in the city on Saturday. Electricity was closed for one hour after every two hours. Despite the pleasant weather, the shortfall remained more than 4,000MW causing 8 to 12 hours of load shedding. Officials said that electricity generation from IPPs has decreased due to absence of oil and gas. According to Pakistan Electric Power Company (PEPCO), shortfall remained 4,216MW, as generation remained 13,304MW while demand surged to 17,520MW.
