KARACHI: Replacement of meters creates anxiety among consumers
By Our Reporter
KARACHI, June 17: KESC consumers, who are suffering from prolonged and unannounced load-shedding, were complaining that the utility was replacing their old electric meters with new ones without giving any prior notice or assigning a reason for the change.
Consumers, especially those living in apartments, complained that the KESC personnel did not even provide them the last reading of the replaced meter, which was swapped in their absence and without prior knowledge.
This has generated considerable concern among the consumers, who were anticipating inflated bills. Many consumers were considering seeking legal action to remedy the situation.
Meanwhile, the Karachi Electric Supply Corporation’s plan to set up nine new grid stations has hit a snag, as the utility was now encountering fresh claims over the plots it had obtained from the Board of Revenue (BoR) to set up these facilities.
According to KESC sources, the corporation’s plan to set up a new grid station in the Korangi Creek area has run into trouble as the ownership of Plot NC 24 in Deh Tih, which it had obtained from the BoR, has been challenged by an individual, who claimed that the plot is his property and has been in his possession since 1992.
The two-acre plot was procured by the KESC in 2005 and a notice declaring such was put up on it. No one had come forward with any claim at that time. Now the KESC was worried because the equipment it had ordered for the grid station was due to arrive soon.
The KESC was facing a problem of a similar nature with regard to Plot NC 17 in Deh Ditti Amri near Ahsanabad in Gulshan-i-Maymar. This plot was also procured by the utility from the BoR in 2005 but Site Limited claims the land was allotted to it by the government.
SSGC CHIEF’S COMMENTS: Meanwhile, the Managing Director of the Sui Southern Gas Company, Munawar Baseer Ahmad, told a two-day symposium here on Saturday that the current power crisis was the result of lack of integrated planning and the absence of any coordination between the sectoral entities.
Mr Ahmad attributed the crisis to several key aspects that included inadequate energy demand forecasts, inability to address the primary energy supply chain development and enhancement and security issues and a regulatory framework that is totally out of sync with the ground realities and supply constraints.
He said that a regulatory body like Nepra must play a more proactive role in this regard in the same mode as Ogra, which has been regularly making recommendations to the oil and gas sector on related issues.
Mr Mukhtar Ahmed, Adviser to the Prime Minister on Energy, said that the government had drawn up an energy sector action plan whereby by the financial year 2017, the power generation capacity would be increased to 28,700 megawatts.
