| Privatised KESC heaps agony on citizens |
| Thursday, 28 August 2008 | |
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Recurring power failures plagued the city again on Wednesday, as the Karachi Electric Supply Company (KESC) continues to fail to meet the power supply demand. The cumulative power demand of Karachi currently hovers around 2,200 Megawatts (MW), and over the past 24 hours, the KESC has faced a maximum shortfall of 590MW. This has led to unabated and recurring spells of load-shedding. The shortfall of electricity is expected to cross the 600MW mark later Wednesday night. Various residential localities of the city came under a maximum of four spells of power load-shedding within 24 hours, and each time the power was shut down for well over two hours. Quarters privy to the power supply situation in the city suspect that the privatised management of the power utility has been “playing a highly mischievous role” in managing the electricity needs of the city. Instead of taking the required rectification and improvement measures to streamline its power generation, transmission, and distribution systems, it has deliberately chosen to become witness to serious deterioration of the power supply situation. The economic and financial interests of the private sector owners of the power utility have surely played a vital role in evolving such an attitude of criminal indifference towards this very fundamental need of the people of Karachi, sources said. Two units of the Bin Qasim Thermal Power Station (BQTPS) have been non-functional since the last couple of days while the remaining four units of the Bin Qasim plant could not give overall power generation output of more than 700MW. Unit No.1 and Unit No.4 of the BQTPS have been shut down while on Wednesday Unit No.2 of the Bin Qasim plant was giving 170MW electricity generation Around 5 pm the four functional units of the BQTPS had been giving cumulative output of 660MW that was by 7:30 pm improved to 710MW. There has been no power generation output from the Defence Cogen desalination plant and the Karachi Nuclear Power Plant, each giving 80MW generation input into the system, further exacerbating the situation of power supply to the utter disadvantage of power utility consumers in the city. Further deterioration in the situation is the complete shut-down of the Korangi gas turbines of the KESC that had been earlier giving 72MW power generation input into the electric supply system of the city. The unit no.4 of the Korangi Thermal Power Station of the KESC has been non-functional while the other generation units have been giving 80MW power generation instead of the desired 160MW. |
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