KARACHI, March 23: The Karachi Electric Supply Corporation has refused to recognize information technology as an industry for the past six years.
Well-placed sources told Dawn on Sunday that the KESC still billed information technology organizations, such as software houses, Internet service providers and information technology institutes, according to commercial tariff. “The information technology organizations have yet to receive the tariff benefit extended to the industrial consumers by the KESC,” they added.
Information technology was declared an industry over six years ago. Through a notification [No3(2)97-INV-IV] issued on March 5, 1997, the ministry of industries and investment had announced: “The government of Pakistan is pleased to declare the computer software information technology as an ‘industry’ with immediate effect.”
At present, there are a large number of software houses registered with the Pakistan Software Houses Association. In addition, many software houses are working independently of the Pakistan Software Houses Association. Similarly, there are Internet service providers registered with the Internet Service Providers Association of Pakistan, and a large number of information technology institutes are registered with the Sindh Board of Technical Education.
All these organizations have been paying bills according to commercial tariff despite the fact that information technology was declared an industry by the government more than six years ago.
The president of the Internet Service Providers Association of Pakistan, V.A. Abidi, told Dawn that the Water and Power Development Authority, as well as the KESC, charged information technology institutes commercial tariff.
“Apart from power utilities, most banks do not extend loan facilities to information technology institutes which they would get if they were treated as industries,” he said.
Another official of Ispak said that many people had drawn the attention of the former minister for science and technology, Dr Attaur Rehman, at a seminar on Sept 17, 2001, at the Finance and Trade Centre towards the refusal of the KESC to make any concessions for the nascent information technology industry.
He said: “Software houses are fast realizing that they will not be able to operate at a profit if they are billed by the KESC according to commercial tariff. That is why some software houses prefer the power produced by private generators to the electricity provided by the KESC at commercial tariff,” he observed.
An owner of a software house said that he had recently written to the managing director of the KESC, Brig Tariq Saddozai, about the fact that the power utility had not yet granted the concession to information technology organizations.
“The KESC MD did not deem it proper and fit to respond. I also lodged a complaint at the website of the KESC but to no avail,” he said.
Insiders, however, told Dawn that the reason why the KESC was unwilling to bill information technology organizations according to industrial tariff was that their bills were under industrial threshold.
Experts maintain that there is a need for revising the industrial threshold of the KESC so that the benefit can be passed to the information technology industry.
