Load-shedding manager: Life of a man who holds the blackout buttons

Nadeem is caught between loyalty to employers and anger of consumers.

LAHORE:

“Hearing some commotion outside our office a few weeks ago, I went outside to see what was going on when a man in his mid-forties pulled out a gun and pointed it right at me. He threatened that if the power supply at his house was not restored right away, he would shoot me,” said Nadeem, a load-shedding manager at a power grid station in Lahore.

Desperate pleas from violent protestors, death threats and verbal abuses have become a norm for Nadeem. At times, he says, he receives ‘orders’ from people identifying themselves as ‘high-ranking officials’ every time there is a power cut.

He admits that his job has made him cold.

“A man once called me, saying that his father had passed away that morning and the body had to be kept at home. He asked me to have the power switched back on to keep the body from decaying. I flatly refused and asked him to move the body elsewhere.”

Nadeem’s job involves managing power supply to industrial, domestic and commercial consumers on a daily basis.

An unshaven face and weary eyes are testament to the 20 years that Nadeem has put in at the Lahore Electric Supply Corporation (Lesco).

Nadeem and other sub-station operators are given a monthly schedule by their heads at each grid station across the country. The schedule is made at the Regional Control Centre (RCC) in Islamabad and then transferred to the Power Dispatch Centres (PDCs), one in every city, which then communicates with individual stations to manage the ‘load-shedding’ accordingly. However, he adds, this is only in the case of announced load-shedding. Unannounced power cuts are something that even the grid station staff is unaware of.

“People don’t generally mind if there is a set schedule. But lately, we never know when we might get a call from either of the PDCs or at times even the RCC telling us to halt supply,” says the grid station supervisor.

Describing the consequences that they are left to deal with, the supervisor says that they had to raise the walls and put up barbed wire around the grid station, along with installing a heavy metal door at the entrance.

Switching on some of the machines and turning others off, as per the timetable provided to him, Nadeem says he sometimes wishes he could provide uninterrupted power supply. As an afterthought, he adds that it may cost him his job.

“The Water and Power Development Authority (Wapda) has field reporters who crosscheck whether or not grid stations are doing their jobs accordingly … but this crosscheck seems only for those who do not have contacts in Wapda.

Nadeem believes it may be years before they are able to bridge the gap between the supply and demand, but if the country’s decision makers start working on new dams, the situation may improve in another five or six years.



Published in The Express Tribune, July 23^rd, 2011.