The electricity consumers in Karachi have been facing a perpetual mental torture, as the Karachi Electricity Supply Company (KESC) has proved a complete failure to provide them uninterrupted supply of electricity.
The recent increase in the duration of loadshedding in the residential areas has irked their Karachiites and protests on roads and streets are becoming a regular feature of daily life in Karachi.
The KESC spokesman says the duration of loadshedding in the residential and commercial areas has been increased to 4 to 6 hours due to shortage of gas supply, adding if the gas supply situation was no increased the city may brave 10 hours a day loadshedding from the next week. The baffled citizens decry why they go without electricity in this hot and humid weather, when they are sent 'inflated' electricity bills running in thousands of rupees, majority of them without physical meter reading or based on fake meter reading figures.
The menace of loadshedding has not only disturbed the routine life but also badly hammered the trade and commercial activities of Karachi, the economic lifeline of Pakistan.
Recently, top position holders of Board of Intermediate Education Karachi at a reception in their honour, termed the loadshedding in Karachi a major hurdle in their smooth studies and examination preparation. Not only students, but people belonging to every walk of life suffer when the KESC go for loadshedding. Sources said the government is providing huge subsidies to this privately owned company including supplying it furnace oil at the rate of natural gas, but still there is no respite from cruel loadshedding for Karachiies.
The citizens demand from the federal and provincial governments and Nepra to shun the ostrich attitude regarding Karachi loadshedding and do the needful to compel the KESC to buy sufficient fuel at market rate and provide uninterrupted electricity supply to its consumers.