KARACHI: Karachi plagued by ‘relentless’ load-shedding

KESC generation, transmission and distribution system on 4th june,2020, Saturday, resulted in the shortfall of over 200 megawatts and sparked two-hour load-shedding after every 3 hours or so in most localities, adding to the woes of the consumers on a sizzling weekend. On 5th june, 2020, Sunday, Morning most of the Areas were without Power from Early in the Morning to 10 AM on the pretext of Technical Faults, while they have been carrying out unscheduled load shedding due to shortage of HSFO in the previous days.

Insiders said the KESC management was resorting to massive load-shedding to save on fuel cost, especially of furnace oil, to ensure its profit margin. Several units were shut down to save furnace oil cost without any consideration of the people’s need. This was the situation a few days after the Governor of Sindh announced that there will be no Load shedding after 48 Hours, While the people continued to suffer and neither Provincial nor Federal Government is taking notice of this Miserable Load shedding in Karachi. In Summer, K-Electric is carrying out this Load shedding since the time it is Privatized and the people do not know now who is running the Utility? .If we contact 118, or 8119,Usually it is said that

"your area is affected due to a Technical Fault, our team is working and as soon as the fault is attended, the supply will be restored". Similarly they have been carrying out load shedding 3 times a day due to shortage of HSFO ? Their Messages are on the Record. who is responsible for shortage of HSFO, Who is responsible for monitoring Supply and Demand system when they have installed "SAP ERP SYSTEM", amounting to Millions of Rupees for better Management and Control of the Fuel and Spare parts. However they are monitoring Billing and sucking Blood of the people getting cost of Electricity from Genuine Residential Consumers at the Rate of " Rs 26 Per KWH", the highest in the Asian Countries. KESC management ,In the Early years, approached the federal government to seek a waiver of the seven-year cap on tariff increase which was imposed by the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (NEPRA) at the time of Privatisation of the utility. Since there was a cap on tariff increase, the utility exploited the rise in oil price and passed its entire cost on to the consumers on the pretext of fuel adjustment charge. Now the GST is also passed on to the Genuine Consumers. On the other hand Theft of Electricity by Kunda-Mafia and 40% Line-losses are going on as well. They also recover the Cost of40% Line- losses and theft of Electricity by Kunda-Mafia from the Genuine Consumers. It was the Mandate of the K-Electric to improve the T&D system to reduce the Technical Faults , but had the T&D system improved by them , there would not have been Technical faults on the system, which means they had done nothing for the Transmission and Distribution system, or if they have done then why there are outages in every corner of Karachi on Technical Fault during summer ? While the new management is trying hard to extract the pound of flesh at costs, Karachiites, continue to suffer power outages amid apprehensions that the city might soon plunge into darkness due to overloading and tripping of most of the 112 transformers installed in the Karachi Electric Supply Company’s 46 grid stations which are operating at a capacity much higher than the specified international safety standards. Karachi is a Metropolitan city having a huge population, and Industrial Zones therefore it must have a reliable , consistent power supply system like other big cities of the world but it has totally unreliable and unstable power supply system. Sources said 30 transformers at some grid stations were operating at 100 per cent capacity against the international standard of 70 per cent. More than 20 transformers were operating at 90 per cent capacity while others were functioning at 80 per cent. Only 10 transformers were operating at 70 per cent. These transformers are of 20 MVA to 40 MVA capacities. Due to Karachi Electric Supply Company’s failure to enhance its generation and distribution capacity, residents suffer the lack of electricity for several hours at a stretch , while K-Electric have been and is getting 500-800 MW Load from WAPDA daily. In the early 1990s, the KESC used to export electricity to WAPDA, but corruption and mismanagement have led to it now needing to import about more than 30% of its total requirement. Is it paying to WAPDA? nothing! Had K-Electric be paying to WAPDA for this load , then there would have been no Circular Debt, instead they have to pay Billions of Rupees to Pay to WAPDA & PSO for load and HSFO . Why Ministry of Water & power and Ministry of petroleum do not Declare the Circular debt against K-Electric, which is being run by a private company? Where is Abraaj Group of Industries? , it means they have Defaulted and have Run- away, so who is running K-Electric, no body knows?, while people of Karachi are suffering and living a miserable life in this Summer heat and Coronavirus Lock-downs without Electricity. In an attempt to improve its functioning, the utility was Privatized in 2005, but no positive results were yielded and the Utility is now running on Bankruptcy. Not a single power plant has been installed by K-Electric to improve the shortage of load ? Had they installed a plant of Super-Critical Boilers of 800 MW with a desalination plant , there would have been no need of getting load from WAPDA and there would have been no load -shedding or Water shortage in Karachi . Why Shanghai Electric has not taken over the Utility because Abraaj Group is a Defaulter and it can not clear its circular Debts and other liabilities to the Government of Pakistan.Keeping in view of these facts and Figures, the Matters of K-Electric must be Investigated by a high power committee, Abraaj group must be declared as Bankrupt , punished as per terms & conditions of Agreement of Privitization and K-Electric may be handed over to any other Power Giant with a fair ICB under PPRA, having Prudent Utility Practices as per NEPRA ACT 1997, so that the people of Karachi may get rid of this miserable life in Post-Covid -19.

SULTAN ZAFAR