KARACHI, Jan 12: After having held out the carrot, the Karachi Electric Supply Corporation will now brandish the stick to get those defaulters to pay up who chose not to avail themselves of the relief package offered by the power utility in October.

Speaking at a press conference here on Saturday afternoon, the KESC managing director, Brig Tariq Saddozai, announced that no fewer than 60 KESC recovery teams would disconnect electricity connections of those defaulters who owed more than Rs10,000 to the power utility.

To avoid any untoward occurrences, the KESC recovery teams would be accompanied by the personnel of the Rangers, the police and the army monitoring teams as well as town Nazims, he added.

Brig Saddozai regretted that most KESC defaulters had chosen not to cough up the money they had owed to the power utility. “As many as 466,133 consumers could have availed themselves of the relief package offered to them by us in October, but only 130,330 paid up, giving us only Rs80 million out the total outstanding dues of Rs1.6 billion. It is a pity that the recovered amount was only 4.8 per cent of the outstanding dues.”

The KESC announced a relief package in October under which those consumers who owed less than Rs10,000 (till June 30, 2001) to the power utility were allowed to pay up the dues in 15 equal monthly instalments. Similarly, those who owed more than Rs10,000 to the power utility were allowed to pay up the dues in the 10 equal monthly instalments with an upfront payment of 30 per cent of the dues.

From Monday, the KESC managing director announced, the recovery teams would first go to those areas where the defaulters abound. They would disconnect the power connections if a consumer failed to show credible evidence that he/she had paid up the dues. He added that the power connection of the consumer would be restored as soon as he paid up the dues.

Brig Saddozai said that there were 251,980 consumers who each owed more than Rs10,000 to the power utility. Similarly, there were 152,973 consumers who each owed more than Rs20,000 to the power utility.

The KESC managing director said he had come to the conclusion that disconnection was the only way of making the defaulters cough up the dues. “Recently, the KESC disconnected the power supply of some government departments. Most government departments paid up a large chunk of the dues without delay, promising that they would give the remaining amount within a month.”

He gave a break-up of the amount various government department owed to the KESC and the amount they paid up. The Karachi Water and Sewerage Board had owed Rs937 million to the KESC and had paid up Rs114 million. The Karachi Shipyard had owed Rs8.5 million to the KESC. When its power supply had been cut off, it paid up the dues the same day. The Cantonment Board had owed Rs7.1 million to the KESC and it had paid up Rs5.1 million. The Defence Housing Authority had owed Rs3.8 million to the KESC and paid up Rs980,000. The Airport Security Force had owed Rs3.7 million to the KESC and had paid up Rs1.1 million. The Printing Corporation had owed Rs3.7 million to the KESC and had paid up Rs570,000.