Karachi Power Outage Sparks Traffic Chaos: A Pillar of Governance Failure

In Karachi, a protest ignited by an extended power outage in the Punjab Colony unraveled into a city-wide traffic fiasco on Saturday, according to Dawn reports. Residents of a high-rise building blocked a key thoroughfare at Punjab Chowrangi, expressing frustration over a continuous electricity cut exceeding 24 hours. Despite numerous complaints, K-Electric, the sole electricity distributor, allegedly failed to act, prompting residents to take to the streets in desperation.

The protest brought chaos to Defence Road and its vicinity, with traffic snarls persisting for hours. Critical commercial operations near Karachi Port were affected with long queues of trailers and tankers at a standstill stretching from Qayyumabad to the KPT Flyover. Thousands of commuters found themselves stranded as major junctions like Boat Basin, Gizri, and Hino Chowrangi were gridlocked. The power crisis, fueling the protest, reportedly stemmed from K-Electric's combative anti-theft initiative in the adjacent P&T Colony. Residents claim the building's power was cut indiscriminately, affecting both legally and illegally connected homes.

K-Electric downplayed the protests, describing participants as 'miscreants' endeavoring to restore illegal power connections. According to Dawn, a KE spokesperson remarked that their teams faced attacks while implementing a crackdown on a significant power theft operation allegedly masked by a cable network. However, no evidence was presented that implicated all affected residents in theft activities. While K-Electric claimed partial restoration of power following intervention by local leaders and law enforcement, the episode highlights a larger issue: Pakistan's longstanding struggle to ensure reliable and fair electricity distribution amidst chronic infrastructure inadequacies. This incident is emblematic of enduring governance failures where citizens bear the brunt of systemic dysfunction, as reported by Dawn and ANI.