News
Monday, May 23, 2011
Political parties play role of silent spectators
Load shedding continues to plague Karachi
By Atif Raza
KARACHI: Prolonged and unannounced power load shedding and faults caused worst law and order situation in the city over the last 15 days, while political and non-political parties remained silent over the issue of worst power outages and the Karachi Electric Supply Company (KESC) employees’ dismissal.
The citizens also held protest demonstrations and set tyres on fire in many areas to show anger against the KESC during this period. On Sunday, the angry people staged demonstrations in front of FTC Building along Shahrah-e-Faisal, Hassan Square, Jail Chowrangi and Bilal Goth, Gulistan-e-Jauhar against power load shedding and failures, while the commuters faced trouble due to traffic jams caused by the protests.
During two weeks, scores of vehicles and other public & private property were gutted by miscreants while major city areas remained disturbed because of frequent power outages that made the lives of citizens miserable.
The dismissed employees of the KESC have established a protest camp outside the Karachi Press Club to seek attention of the relevant authorities towards the issue but it was irony that political and other stakeholders of the city were seen silent spectator over the issue.
These dismissed workers continued their protest for the last 22 days and were looking for the support of politicians and authorities. Neither authorities nor any other political party took up the issue in the current volatile situation and they even not raised the voice against the frequent and prolonged power outages.
It is worth mentioning here that no complaint centre was operational during the last two weeks as people in most areas of the city were suffering from load shedding up to 72 hours.
The insiders of the KESC on the condition of anonymity say that KESC can save electricity if line faults are overcome, but KESC administration seemed reluctant to work on the matter.
Hardily, an area of the city remained without power problems as the protests were held in each area of the city during the last couple of weeks.
The level of anger among people has frequently risen as aerial firing was also reported in many areas.
After the strike of KESC CBA union, repair and maintenance work has been badly affected as a result, citizens have been passing their lives in miserable conditions.
The most affected areas of the city where the residents suffered prolonged power outages were Ranchore Line, Ibne Sena Road, Sadder, Zaibun Nisa Street, Abdullah Haroon Road, Jahangir Road, Gulshan-e-Iqbal, Liaquatabad, Buffer Zone, North Karachi, Nazimabad, North Nazimabad, PECH Society and others. In these areas, citizens were deprived of power supply for 10 to 12 hours.
The KESC administration and employees were facing hurdles in the restoration of the electricity as unidentified miscreants were threatening ad attacking the KESC installations, besides beating up staff rectifying faults.
The residents of Buffer Zone area said miscreants set a KESC vehicle on fire when it reached there to restore power supply. The recent attack on a grid station and PMTs’ faults in different areas also caused trouble to citizens.
Interestingly, law enforcement agencies in whole episode were seen helpless because when the KESC offices were attacked, they were doing nothing to disperse the miscreants.
Courtesy www.dailytimes.com.pk