KARACHI, Aug 29: The system development charges of the Karachi Electric Supply Corporation are higher than those of the Water and Power Development Authority despite the fact that the national power utility has a better and more extensive transmission and distribution system.

Well-placed sources told Dawn that Wapda charged its consumers little system development charges. “On the other hand, the KESC charges its industrial and commercial consumers Rs3,500 per kilowatt for the development of its transmission and distribution network. It charges its residential consumers Rs1,500 per kilowatt,” they explained.

They pointed out that another anomaly in the KESC system was that it charged a lot of money as security deposit. “The KESC penalizes its consumers because it has an inefficient recovery mechanism. It asks its consumers to pay energy consumption charges of two-and-a-half months. On the other hand, Wapda asks its consumers to pay energy consumption charges of one month,” they said.

The sources added that for reasons best known to themselves the energy planners of the country had one set of rules for Wapda and another set of rules for the KESC.

KESC officials admitted that the system development charges of the power utility were much higher than those of Wapda. They, however, argued that the material used by Wapda was less expensive than the one used by the KESC.

“The conductor used by Wapda is aluminium which the KESC cannot use due to Karachi’s proximity to the sea. The KESC, therefore, has to use copper which can withstand the corrosive effect of the sea,” they contended.

They said the entire transmission and distribution system of Wapda was overhead which the KESC could not have. “These factors make the system development cost of the KESC four times higher than that of Wapda,” they admitted.

High-ranking KESC officials admitted that the reason why Wapda charged only one month’s energy consumption charges as security deposit was that its revenue recovery system was far more efficient than that of the KESC.

Detractors of the KESC point out that this should be the other way round because the network of Wapda is much larger than that of the KESC.

The sources said that the reason why the transmission and distribution system of the KESC failed to withstand the vagaries of weather was that it was not cleaned and overhauled on a regular basis.

KESC officials told Dawn on Wednesday that the power cables connecting feeders with generating stations should be cleaned every four months. “Because our system is primitive, it has to be switched off so that it can be cleaned manually. Now there is always such a shortage of electricity that we fail to switch off our precious few feeders so that the transmission and distribution system could be overhauled. As a result, the entire network becomes vulnerable to sudden changes in the weather.”

They added that with only 781 feeders and 7,800 substations or distribution transformers, the power utility could not supply electricity to its more than 1.7 million consumers in an uninterrupted manner.

Experts maintain that one feeder, as a rule of thumb, could at best handle 3.2 megawatts. “The 781 feeders of the KESC are capable of handling 2,500 megawatts or thereabouts. The maximum power demand of the city in sweltering summers is well above 1,800 megawatts. This is not enough because in the hot weather chances of breakdowns also increase,” they point out.

The KESC officials said that an in-house workshop carried out the repair of the equipment when it broke down.