April 17, 2008	Thursday	Rabi-us-Sani 10, 1429

KARACHI, April 16: Load-shedding by the Karachi Electric Supply Company continued on Wednesday at least thrice a day as the Bin Qasim power plant’s unit number three could not be reactivated on Tuesday. It had gone off the bar due to an unspecified technical fault on Monday night.

Though some “leakage” cited unofficially appeared to be the cause of the unit’s closure, credible sources within the utility told Dawn that such faults reported every now and then were part of the KESC management’s attempt to cut the cost of fuel.

At present, the KESC’s own power generation is less than 1,000 megawatts and the input from the Independent Power Producers (IPPs) is 415 megawatts. The shortfall of 400 megawatts, out of the total 700 megawatts, is met through the supplies from the Water and Power Development Authority (Wapda).

Power consumers in different areas were subjected to a two-hour load-shedding thrice on Tuesday and Wednesday on a rotation basis to manage the shortfall of the remaining 300 megawatts.

“Service or business?”

Sources observed that the KESC, once delivering as a public service utility, has changed the concept to “business utility”. “In the past, the service used to be provided to the entire satisfaction of consumers but now the service is being provided against business,” they elaborated.

The National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra), acting upon the government’s instructions, had fixed the power tariff for seven years. However, the KESC management increased the service connection charges within this period up to 300 per cent and the supervision charges and profit margin by 51 per cent, making it too expensive for consumers to get a new connection. The sources further pointed that the move encouraged the trend of installing illegal connections and other practices of power theft.

Inefficient management

Headed by a retired military general who is holding the slot of the chief executive officer (CEO), the present management has put in a new organisational setup and appointed nine executive directors who have no experience of running a power utility.

Of the 22 directors working in the utility, only seven are from the KESC. Surprisingly, most of the directors are not engineers. It’s also interesting to note that before the KESC’s privatisation, the managing-director and 13 senior officers of the chief engineer level had been managing the utility’s affairs at 10 times lesser perks and privileges.