Once again the city suffered long hours of electricity closures due to rain on Sunday while LESCO claims that the power was closed in the better interest of consumers.
LESCO phone lines also remained off to avoid consumer complaints. The majority of the city areas including Shadman, Gulberg, Wapda Town, Johar Town, Township, Misri Shah, Gari Shahu, Cantonment areas, Walled City and Shadbagh remained out of electricity even after rain ended.
The electricity was closed before the rain started at around 1pm and there was no electricity for a continuous two hours. However, the power was restored in a few areas but the majority of areas continued to suffer from outages.
For the better: Lahore Electric Supply Company (LESCO) officials claimed that the electricity was closed in public interest. They said walls at homes could become risky if power remained on during rain with the risk of suffering electric shocks increasing. They also claimed that the electricity supply was resumed to major parts of the city after rains ended. “In some areas, the power transmission lines were disturbed due to fall of trees on the lines and as soon they were fixed power was restored,” said a LESCO official.
LESCO numbers off: Consumers said that they faced more than four hours of closure due to rain and the day was spoiled by LESCO. “As soon the rain started, electricity was closed,” said housewife Samia Saeed adding there was no electricity either during or after the rains. She said that her husband tried calling LESCO helpline but it remained engaged.
Another consumer Ghafoor Ahmed of Gulberg said that LESCO was least concerned about consumer complaints and was avoiding them. “There was no electricity for three hours and when I tried to call the helpline of LESCO it remained engaged,” he said adding if LESCO does not want to facilitate the consumers then it should remove the helpline number from electricity bills. He said not only did the helpline number not work but dialing the office number of the Gulberg sub-division office did not get a response.
Another consumer Farooq Mughal of Green Town said that after the rain there was voltage problem at his home and he tried to call LESCO office but received no response. “The sub-division officials were not attending the phone and I went to office for registering my complaint but no one was present there and it seemed officials have gone to their homes,” he lamented. Mughal also tried to contact the area’s SDO and XEN but the cell numbers of these officials were switched off.
The LESCO gave excuse of problems in transmission lines due to rains. “A large number of areas witnessed problems, as tree fell on the electricity lines,” said an official of LESCO adding the teams were sent for repair works as soon rain ended. “It take around one to two hours in repairing lines and we did our best,” he added.
