Electricity woes: Upper Sindh facing long power outages

SEPCO is a separate company but is still dependent upon Jamshoro for supply.

SUKKUR: In contrast to the load shedding schedule announced by Pakistan Electric Supply Corporation (Pepco) the Sukkur Electric Power Company (Sepco) has started eight to twelve hours of undeclared load shedding in urban and rural areas of upper Sindh.

Pepco had announced scheduled load shedding of three to four hours from December 26 onwards.

Since the division of the Hyderabad Electric Supply Corporation (Hesco) into two companies in August 2010 the new power company is still dependent upon Hesco and power dispatch centre Jamshoro. The latter taking advantage of its position is ordering Sepco officers for carrying out undeclared load shedding, which often is much more than the actual shortfall.

On Friday night when the entire city plunged into darkness officials said that the power dispatch center Jamshoro had cut the power supply to all three grid stations of the city for the next two hours. At about 12:30 midnight this correspondent contacted the power dispatch centre Jamshoro, an official without disclosing his identity said that eight hours load shedding will be carried out in urban areas and twelve hours in rural areas.  When this correspondent told him about the announcement of Pepco the official said that he better talk to them and dropped the line.

Superintendent engineer Sepco Rafiq Noonari said that officers at Jamshoro are taking advantage of their helplessness. Media manager Sepco Sadiq Kobhar said that he will talk to the responsible officers of the power dispatch centre Jamshoro.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 26^th, 2010.