KARACHI, Oct 15: Major General Tahir Muhammad Qazi, GOC 4-Air Defence Division, monitoring KESC, has asked the corporation’s distribution and billing officials to maintain strict check on the use of temporary connections by multistoried building projects.
Presiding over a high-level meeting here on Monday which was attended by Brig Tariq Saddozai, KESC MD, Brig Irfan Ali, head of Army Monitoring Teams working in aid of the KESC, Brig Syed Javed Iqbal, Commander 45-Air Defence Brigade, and other senior army and KESC officials, GOC was briefed through detailed presentation on metering of electricity consumers, recovery of power bills and the present status of temporary connections in Karachi.
KESC MD Brig Tariq Saddozai informed the meeting that KESC was undertaking a crash programme through which 5,000 electricity meters will be brought outside the premises by November 15, after which next phase of bringing another 5000 meters will follow.
Maj-Gen Tahir instructed the billing and distribution department’s and the AMTs to maintain regular surveillance so that the unscrupulous element did not again start tampering with the new meters.
The KESC has already informed its customers regarding the shifting of meters through letters and the electricity consumers will not be charged for new meter which will be replaced with the old ones.
Old meters taken out by KESC will be recycled after overhauling and testing. However, at the time of shifting of the meters the electric supply to premises will remain shut off for duration work is being carried out, KESC spokesman added.
The shifting of meters outside the premises was taken up as a pilot project last July and yielded very beneficial results both for the consumers and KESC.
It will make average billing negligible, while outside the premises shifting of just 1,838 meters was giving additional monthly revenue of over Rs1,387 million on these connections. As these meters sealed inside the anti-theft boxes cannot be tampered or bypassed without breaking the box, KESC will in phases shift all the 1.7 million meters outside, the spokesman informed.
Chief Engineer Khalid Iqbal informed the meeting that a total of 459 connections were provided to the builders out of which 185 premises have been disconnected for not availing proper connections although the project was fully complete, about 81 were reconnected as the buildings were occupied for residential use and the builder had disappeared without implementing proper electrification scheme.—PPI
