KARACHI, Sept 28: Federal Minister for Water and Power Liaquat Ali Jatoi has asked the KESC to put all efforts together to solve the power problems of the metropolis.
He expressed displeasure over the prolonged load-shedding in the city in the month of Ramazan.
The minister was chairing a meeting with members of KESC to review the power situation in Karachi in response to the complaints of the people of
Karachi and on a special directive of Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz.
He discussed in detail the distribution, generation and transmission system, along with the expansion plans of the power utility. He was informed that power breakdowns were occurring due to the closing down of the Bin Qasim Unit and replacement of blades.
Mr Jatoi said that KESC had selected wrong time for the closure as this was causing problems to people in Ramazan.
He mentioned that Wapda was already supplying 750 megawatts to the KESC and government had also given a subsidy of Rs2.4 million to the power utility to help it provide relief to Karachiites.
The minister directed the KESC to improve its performance and depute more staff to promptly address consumers’ complaints.
He also suggested medium- and long-term plans to solve the problem and directed the KESC to submit a daily report on power generation, distribution and transmission to his office.
He said that a report about the KESC performance from May to September be submitted to him within one month.
The meeting was informed that the KESC had set up 33 maintenance centres in Karachi which were working round the clock to address consumers’ complaints and identify faults.
The minister himself called the staff at the maintenance centres to know about their response and expressed displeasure over their inefficiency. Later, he visited certain complaint centres.
Mr Jatoi said that he would personally monitor the KESC performance and ensure minimum load-shedding in the city.—APP
