East Lahore suffers 36 hours of power failure

LAHORE: People living in large swath of East Lahore have to brave power failure of over 36 hours, thanks to inept management of Lahore Electric Supply Company (LESCO).

A fault in 132kv Fatehgarh Grid Station cut off power supply on Tuesday night to dozens of localities on both sides of city Canal. The problem started with severe power fluctuation that lasted for about 12 hours non-stop as no one from the local staff of Lesco paid heeds to successive complaints of the residents. Even complaint lodged to top management of Lesco went unheard as power supply continued to be suspended. People further complained that electricity supply of whole area completely disconnected on Wednesday night. We spent whole night in the backyard of our house, said one of the dejected customers. We were even deprived of water supply, leave alone luxury of cold water in extremely muggy weather as fridge was non-functioning in the absence of power supply.

Infuriated over unabated ordeal on account of power failures, people staged a demonstration in the area. They blocked the road and chanted slogans against the Lesco staff of Tajpura office. A similar protest was held near General Hospital on Ferozepur Road in Chungi Amersadhu area. Long queues of vehicles were seen on the road, according to eye witnesses as people stranded for hours due to logjam.

Nadeem Akram, a local inhabitant said government warned about greater load shedding from July, however, people already braved day and night without power supply in the month of June. Dr Maham, another local was of the view that she had to tolerate 18 hours load shedding already, and local staff was saying power suspension would continue. People were especially dejected over apathy of Lesco staff as initially their complaints were not being addressed saying the replacement of transformer is the responsibility of the sponsor of the Housing scheme not by power utility.

Later, on the complaints of long outages, Chief Executive, Lesco took action against officers concerned for negligence. SDO Operation, Amir Town, Umar Naseer, Naseer Ali, Incharge, Fatehgarh Grid Station and Deputy Manager Operations, Mughalpura Division, Faizan Qadir have been suspended for not restoring power in time. Show-cause notices were also issued to XEN North, SE, GSO and Chief Engineer TNG.

In nearby districts under the Lesco, people also met with similar fate. The Warburton grid was off on Wednesday despite being exempt industrial grid, said a customer. All Industry with independent feeders had to shutdown their operation. A Lesco spokesperson responded that the supply remained running upto 15.00 hrs and then the Industrial/Independent Feeders switched off due to 132 KV Circuit from Shahkot became overloaded.

On social media platform, people rumored about exemption given to areas of the city where by-elections are to be held next month. A local resident said he lived in an area of city where by-elections of a provincial constituency are taking place. We have not had power outages for several days while load shedding is taking place in other areas of the city.