Several areas suffer five-hour breakdown

Several areas of the city, including Defence, Gulberg and Model Town, suffered a 5-hour power breakdown on Monday.

LAHORE: Several areas of the city, including Defence, Cavalry Ground, Gulberg and Model Town, suffered a five-hour power breakdown on Monday.

The electricity supply was suspended at 11 am and was restored at 4 pm. The suspension also affected Garden Town, Township, Faisal Town, Civil Secretariat and other areas.

Besides the five-hour power failure, residents of some of the areas also had to endure scheduled outages.

A Lahore Electric Supply Company (Lesco) official said that the disruption had occurred as a result of a technical fault at one of the city’s main 220 KV grid station, situated in Kot Lakhpat. As a result, power supply to dozens of smaller grid stations, of 132KV, connected to the main grid station had shut down. These stations included Batapur, Lefo, Ghazi, Fatehgarh, Airport, Defence, New Defence, Rehman Park, New Kot Lakhpat, Daroghaywala, Township and Garden Town, he said.

Lesco additional director (Public Relations), Javed Khan, said that it took five hours for Lesco teams to repair the fault. Khan said that because of the unscheduled power suspension, power was not shut down during scheduled hours. However, consumers refuted his claim and also complained that Lesco officials had switched off their phones.

“Soon after electricity shut down, the water supply followed,” said Asif Saeed, a resident of Model Town. A Defence resident, Ali Tariq, said that he had called the Lesco office a number of times to get information about the suspension “but the lines were continuously busy,” he said adding, “The numbers of the SDOs and the XEN were also not responding.”
“Even if it was a technical problem, we should be informed when the supply will be or is likely to be restored,” he said. Farooq Shah of Township said that in addition to the five-hour closure, there were routine outages.

“They did not spare us even after the five-hour breakdown. We had to suffer two additional hours of power outage,” he added. The government officials at the Civil Secretariat said they had to use battery-operated torches and emergency lights from their mobile phones. “Many rooms of the Secretariat don’t get any sunlight and depend on electricity,” said a senior officer of the Finance Department adding, “I had to use the light of my mobile phone to complete my work,” he added.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 10^th, 2010.