LAHORE - With the mercury touching almost 45 degrees Celsius, the ghost of unscheduled power outages, tripping and low voltage continued to haunt the consumers in the holy month despite achieving record electricity generation of around 19,000MW for the first time in the history.

Though announced power loadshedding in urban areas of the Leso jurisdiction is almost six hours but constant power tripping, low voltage and partial shutdown amidst scorching heat of the summers have been making life difficult for the fast observers. The rural areas still continue to bear loadshedding of 10 to 12 hours.

As a result of low voltage and tripping, consumers complained that their electrical appliances are not working properly and sometimes they suffer irreparable damage. Worsening the situation further, in some areas, the loadshedding is being observed during Iftar, Sehar and Taraweeh timings. Prolonged loadshedding is causing severe inconveniences. People are furious at the routine shutdowns and are demanding an immediate end to the ongoing loadshedding which has crippled the routine life.

The citizens are facing an alarming situation as power outages have increased due to an increase in temperature, making life and business miserable. The Lahore Electricity Supply Company (Lesco) has been facing a shortfall of 1275MW as the demand has risen to 4600MW while supply is 3325MW despite record generation of around 19,000MW in the national grid.

Consumers were of the view that Lesco has run out of transformers and has been unable to get the damaged transformers repaired, turning the situation critical in spite of the fact that power supply situation from national grid system is not so pathetic. A large number of power consumers told The Nation that they are facing tripping and low voltage due to major fault in feeders but Lesco spokesperson was of the view they are strictly observing loadshedding schedule of 4 hours in city areas and 6 hours in village areas. The residents are in grip of hot weather facing almost 45 degree Celsius temperature for the last few days. Hence, the long hours of unscheduled loadshedding is playing with the nerves of the people already suffering from scorching heat wave during Ramazan.

Water situation is also worst in affected localities. Residents of affected areas including, Multan Road, Chungi Amar Saddhu, Thokar, Johar Town, Allama Iqbal Town, Shalimar Kaloni etc said that unscheduled and prolonged power outages, low voltage and tripping have made their life miserable. “We are paying electricity bills every month but are not getting electricity in the holy month of Ramazan.”

According to reports, total power generation in the country has touched the figure of about 19,000MW, as the Guddu Thermal Power Station achieved a maximum production of 1,300MW while Nandipur power plant has also reached its full capacity of operations at 415MW but the loadshedding duration is not reducing unfortunately.