KARACHI, Nov 18: Work at Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre remained adversely affected for almost three days as the Karachi Electric Supply Corporation disconnected the hospital’s power supply on Saturday.
Hospital sources told Dawn on Monday that the power utility had disconnected the electricity connection of the JPMC’s administrative block, including the director’s office, and the nursing school.
“The JPMC owes Rs32 million to the KESC. Now the JPMC has requested the ministry of health which has, in turn, requested the ministry of finance to extend an assurance to the KESC that the outstanding dues would be paid within three weeks.”
They added that the power utility had restored the electricity connection on Monday evening after the assurance had been given to them.
KESC sources told Dawn that the power utility had disconnected the electricity supply of the JPMC about a month back. “At that time the dues were around Rs30 million. But the JPMC assured the KESC that it would pay up within four weeks. The KESC waited for the payment but no payment was made. The outstanding dues rose to Rs32 million. The power utility then disconnected the JPMC’s electricity supply on the expiry of the deadline. Now that the JPMC has given another assurance that it will pay the outstanding dues within three weeks, its power supply has been restored.”
RECOVERY DRIVE: The KESC sources told Dawn that as part of the ongoing recovery drive the KESC disconnected power supply to the postmaster general’s office on Sunday. “A KESC team disconnected the supply because the Pakistan Post Office owed Rs4.2 million to the power utility. The PPO paid up Rs1.5 million and promised that it would pay the remaining sum soon. The KESC then restored the PPO’s power supply.”
They added that the KESC had began the recovery campaign in a big way in January. It was announced that 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 personnel of the Rangers, police and army monitoring teams as well as Town Nazims, it was also announced.
“As many as 466,133 consumers could have availed themselves of the relief package offered to them by the power utility in October 2001, but only 130,330 paid up, giving the KESC only Rs80 million out of 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,” they pointed out.
