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KARACHI, July 20: A committee of WAPDA experts appraising the functioning of the Karachi Electric Supply Corporation (KESC) has called for the immediate beef-up of corporate KESC with experienced utility professionals. The committee’s report, which is expected to be submitted to relevant authorities next week, also refers to concerns about safety and recovery measures.
In the initial draft report – a copy of which has been obtained by Dawn— the committee has noted widespread power theft, voltage fluctuation and the lack of proper earthing of wires. Raising the issue of the lack of increase in the KESC’s power-generation capacity, the committee has advised the utility to rent power plants for at least two years so that the gap between supply and demand is bridged until new power plants are set up.
The draft report requires the operations and management (O&M) contractors to “arrange for experienced utility professionals to help in operating and managing the KESC.” It suggests that additional project officers should be nominated to supervise upcoming generation, transmission and distribution projects, particularly since the current divisional directors are already immersed in normal operations. Furthermore, it has been proposed that a federal inspection team should be appointed through non-intrusive means to monitor the utility’s performance on a bi-monthly basis.
Sources say that committee members also suggested that the KESC and its O&M contractors demonstrate cooperation, observing that “a clear divide is evident between the O&M contractors, the corporate structure of the KESC and the KESC cadre comprising of a total of 17,586 employees of which 9,465 are permanent while 8,121 are on contract. All this has resulted in an organisational, operational and cultural disconnect.”
It was noticed that the O&M contractors do not have the required experience in operations and management, as a result of which all their efforts are diverted towards secondary issues.
The committee pointed out that the KESC is unable to increase its revenue because of a 1500MW suppressed demand for electricity. The fact that many people in the city’s urban jungle of apartments and industries are not provided electricity connections by the power utility was termed “revenue loss” that could only be countered by urgently increasing the number of generation units and renting out power plants in the interim period.
Investigations into kundas revealed that the current estimate of 1,30,000 such devices may be entirely off the mark and it was suggested that all such instances must be brought on record and provided official connections. Some estimates put the number of such unauthorised connections at 6,00,000.)
The WAPDA committee found that metering systems were not being monitored, as a result of which thousands of faulty meter reports (FMRs) were pending with the power utility.
Furthermore, KESC billing does not reflect actual usage. Keeping pre- and post-privatisation figures in view, the committee scrutinised the company’s arrears/recovery status and found that the Rs22.1 billion that were outstanding on November 24, 2005, have now ballooned to Rs26.3 billion. Since Rs3.1 billion were reported to have been recovered from the earlier sum, it appears that a stupendous Rs7.2 billion in arrears have been added to the recoverable figures of the past 19 months.
The committee also noted that no dedicated recovery office has been set up in corporate KESC while the O&M contractors have also not established a cell for this purpose.
The functioning of the power utility’s legal division was scrutinised in order to gauge its ability to support recoveries but the WAPDA committee was informed that the legal division was not really required to file recovery cases or pursue such matters.
Referring to the numerous incidents of death by electrocution, the team of experts observed that the protection scheme of the KESC’s integrated system is in shambles and enough experienced personnel are not available in this regard.
The committee concluded that HT< protection on distribution substations and PMTs are in bad shape. LT breakers were found faulty in most cases while earthing and grounding at PMTs/sub-stations and the 11KV/LT system were found wanting. Cradles under HT/LT lines were found to have disappeared in most cases, as a result of which live breaking conductors fall to the ground. Further problems are posed by extremely lengthy mains, by-passed fuses and LT breakers in need of maintenance.
The WAPDA committee called for the immediate preparation and implementation of a human resource (HR) policy in the power utility. The KESC’s current system of transmission, its operations and the prognosis for future development reveals that it must not only upgrade operations but also invest heavily in training. In addition to the non-existence of procedures and delayed maintenance, the ills besetting the KESC are due to the paucity of staff due to retirement or other depletion.
The experts suggested that the Network/Engineering Department, which looks after the transmissions and distribution systems, needs to be expended. They also noticed that focussed project officers are not in place.
Meanwhile, KESC employees were found to be extremely apprehensive about the safety and security of normal operations.
The WAPDA committee was constituted under a prime ministerial directive and its terms of reference were spelt out in Member (Power)’s Office Order No. MP/6806-13, dated July 2, 2007. Tasked with carrying out an appraisal of the KESC plans for system improvement, the team visited Karachi from the 3rd to the 7th of this month. It interviewed KESC employees, visited field offices, plants and other installations in addition to scrutinising documents and records.
The experts found that the various plans for improving all three segments of the utility’s operations – generation, distribution and transmission – were in order, barring the ignored need to invest in upgrading the distribution system and the need to keep a check on actual implementation.
“It seems that new operational systems and procedures have only been formulated (probably in draft form) on paper,” observed the committee.
