September 05, 2008	Friday	Ramazan 04, 1429

HYDERABAD, Sept 4: Hefty amount in outstanding arrears against public and private sector consumers and dwindling furnace oil supply are basic causes of power crisis, said Superintending Engineer, Hesco, Circle-I, Muzaffar Ali Abbasi. He was addressing the members of Advisory Committee of Hyderabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry at Chamber’s Secretariat.

He urged the consumers to deposit their bills within due date to avoid receiving detection bills. Around 12 mobile transformer trolleys had been made handy to immediately resolve power breakdown in any part of the city, he said.

Regarding illegal connections, he pointed out towards more than 25 shopkeepers in the SRTC Complex involved in this practice. He urged the Chamber to persuade them in regularising their connections. He disclosed that in the Cantonment area only, some 26,000 consumers had installed air-conditioners.

The HCCI President Haji Mohammad Yaqoob and Senior Vice-President Mohammad Akram Arain complained that the SDOs never attend telephonic complaints thus forcing consumers to waste hours in visiting their offices to register complaints.

They said that it was good enough if power thieves were slapped with detection bills but a great injustice to those who pay their bills regularly.

They regretted that Hesco failed to redress the complaints of Chamber while taking months to decide about detection or inflated bills, and again a long period was wasted to get rectified errors in bills.

CNG DEALERS: President, Sindh Chapter, the CNG Dealers Association, Dr Zulfiqar Ahmed Yousfani has rejected 31 per cent increase in electricity tariff and demanded its withdrawal. He said that it will add to the miseries of people who were already groaning under price hike.

In a statement faxed to Dawn, he said that if the increase in power tariff was not withdrawn then a hike in CNG prices would become inevitable.