Karachi dreads summer as load shedding continues
Sundays are normally considered a day for relaxation but things have
been looking quite grim since the Karachi Electric Supply Corporation (KESC) started its annual load shedding spree.Imran, who works in a computer software company, is one such citizen. He says the summer weekends usually mean spending the entire day without
electricity."My office is centrally air-conditioned so I beat the heat and load shedding by spending more time there. Weekends are scary. They mean staying in the house in a blackout," he said.Imran lives in Karimabad, where there is also a shortage of water. He said a person can only take one bath a day. "More than that and you run out of water. We get water here on alternate days. Still, the heat is not that bad right now. It's the following months that are scaring me the most," he said.
Blackouts are taking place both during the day and night."Electricity comes and goes according to its own free will. I have to stand in the kitchen and it gets very hot in here," said Mrs Ansari of Bahadurabad. She said that matters were worse in Gulistan-e-Jauhar where her sister's family lives.
"The buildings there are attached to one another, and once the electricity goes, the entire building becomes a frying pan."Conditions remained the same throughout Sunday, where phone callers complained that they had to endure hours and hours without any light. "The kids played outside but my poor wife, who hasn't been feeling could only fall asleep after I fanned her for hours and hours," said Zeeshan Razzak who lives in Dhoraji. He said the electricity went at 8:00 a.m. and did not return till 4:00 p.m."So what has that achieved for people?" he said while referring to the privatisation of KESC. "Things are still the same."In Liaquatabad, Owais Anwar said his work has been affected. "I work at night. I come home after Fajr prayers. I had just gone to sleep around 7:00 a.m. and half an hour later the light went out. I felt like burning down the house. I did finally go to sleep, but that wasn't because the electricity had returned but because I was just too tired to fight it," he said.Blackouts also apparently hit the city's roads where the traffic signals were not working for the better part of the day. Traffic signals on M. A. Jinnah, Shahra-e-Faisal, Karsaz, were out. Policemen in white and dust yellow shirts were seen controlling traffic.Traffic constable Imdad Hussain said life would become severely testing in the absence of lights. "The smaller cars do stop at our signal but the big ones go about their business as if they didn't see us. It's not like they (the big car drivers) always stop at the signals, but they never do it when we are managing the mayhem," he said.
"Life is becoming depressing for the people of the city. Weekends are supposed to be quiet, but without light they become violent: the kids cry," said Razzak. There were reports of violence at Liaquatabad, Teen Hatti, Gulbahar and Orangi because of power blackouts.