Frequent power outages irk Lahoriites amid hot weather

LAHORE: The Lahorites were witnessing menace of loadshedding, breakdowns, power fluctuations and unannounced cuts amid hot and humid weather.

Apart from complaints of feeder tripping, transformer failures and other suspension in electricity supply, the new phenomena of nocturnal loadshedding spanning over an hour in a row between 1am to 3pm has virtually made lives of people hell.

Although authorities concerned have not admitted that there is loadshedding in the provincial metropolis, but they only blamed technical failures and load management in feeders having losses as reasons behind what they call cuts in electricity supply.

However, consumers have different viewpoints. The people in my area including me have no clue about 4-5 hours of power suspension daily, said Uzaid Khalid, a resident of Mansoora on Multan Road. When we contact local staff of power utility, they attribute reason for frequent power cuts in our area to tripping of lines which, according to them are caused by overloading of distribution system, he added. However, he said, he fails to understand that billions of rupees have been spent on augmenting power supply capacity in the last three years but technical faults continue to haunt masses.

The problem of overloading of lines and transformers should have been resolved, he said, adding insistence of Lahore Electric Supply Company (Lesco) in this connection is simply not understandable.

He said the PTI government had been successful in its first year in office by managing affairs of power sector. However, this year, he lamented, frequent electricity failures have returned with full force.

Ali Mujahid, a resident of Muhafiz Town, said forced loadshedding had lately started in his area. The power supply discontinues at any time and for any duration, he said, adding local staff of power utility blamed centralised system of federal government for snapping power supply.

Due to system overload, forced loadshedding started in different areas of the city every two hours. The unending wave of power cuts continued till midnight in one form or another, he said and adding amid extreme heat, faults in power transmission lines have become a new normal. Apart from technical fault in 220 KV line, distribution system have also proved to be too fragile to bear the load of summer demand.

A Lesco official said the demand for electricity had increased due to change in weather, causing pressure on the distribution system. He insisted that power load management was being carried out on only those feeders that have high losses. When contacted, spokesman of Power Division, ministry of energy and Lesco’s chief executive did not comment on complaints of frequent power failures in the city.