Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah said Sunday that the apprehensions he had expressed with federal minister for water & power that fragile and unreliable transmission network may collapse the power supply during Ramazan, and people of Sindh would suffer immensely has sadly come true.
This he said in a letter he has written to Federal Minister for Water & Power Khawaja Asif today. The letter has been sent through fax and courier service. The chief minister said: "My apprehensions sadly came true on 1st day of Ramazan when 13 districts of rural Sindh and half of Karachi division plunged into darkness, as a result of 500 KV Hubco-Jamshoro transmission line tripped at around 2:15 am."
Shah said that the sudden tripping of the fragile high transmission lines created cascading effect not only in HESCO-SEPCO distribution system but also affected K-Electric which was forced to enter into an island mode for system safety by shutting down power supply to large areas of Karachi. "The power has not yet been fully restored," he said.
He further said: "One of the major effects of sudden power outages in Karachi is complete disruption of the water supply system," and added the current power outages had distrusted the water supply from Gharo, Dhabeji, Pipri, COD, Hub and North East Karachi pumping stations which primarily supply drinking water to the entire mega city. Karachi suffered a loss of about 150 MG water due to this power breakdown. "The restoration of line pack pressure requires 24 to 36 hours, if power supply is restored to all interconnected pumping stations," said Murad Ali Shah.
Reiterating his stance the chief minister said "this is a very serious situation, especially when ambient day temperatures are as high as 45 degree Celsius in most parts of Sindh and the holy month of Ramazan has just commenced." He said the provincial government would be in a precarious situation if lengthy power breakdowns persists compromising quality and way of life of urban and rural dwellers resulting in a law and order situation. Shah asked the federal minister to direct the NTDC and DISCOS to immediately take all possible measure for the restoration of electricity to all affected areas in Sindh and also rectify the faults in the 500 KV transmission line.
He said that repair work on Guddu-Dadu-Jamshoro 500 KV circuits may also be completed on urgent basis and ensure that no such incident takes place in future. Moreover, it is further requested that load shedding hours may be reduced to minimum, at least during Ramazan and continuous power supply be ensured especially during Iftar and Sehr hours in Sindh. "I earnestly look forward for an immediate and positive response on the matter please," Sindh chief minister said.
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