RAWALPINDI: Fatima Batool, a government schoolteacher, took a day off to get her inflated electricity bill corrected from Iesco office on Friday. However, she was shocked to find the office locked.

When the 42-year-old single parent of two children asked about the reasons for the closure of the office, people standing outside the building on I.J. Principal Road told her that the employees of the company were on strike against the proposed privatisation of Wapda.

“I got a bill of Rs4,027 for the month of April despite the fact I never used any fan or electric heater. I took off from my school to visit the Iesco office to get my bill corrected. It is not possible for me to take off every day.”

Ms Batool said she had been shuttling between the local Iesco office and the main office at Marir Chowk for the last two days. She said she lived with her son and a daughter in a rented house and there was no other male member in the family to visit the Iesco offices.

Another consumer, Mohammad Amir, a resident of Allahabad, criticised the company for sending inflated bills to the consumers and closing the doors of its offices in the name of strike. He said he had visited the Iesco office thrice to get his bill corrected but to no avail.

“Instead of providing relief to the citizens, the government and its employees are creating problems for them.”

There were also other people who have received inflated bills but since the Iesco offices are closed, they can’t do anything.

A senior Iesco official told Dawn that all employees had launched protest campaign against the proposed privatisation of Wapda. The strike will continue till Monday.

However, he said the staff was still in the field to repair supply lines and transformers. However, he added, correction in bills and other work had been suspended.

When contacted, All Pakistan Workers Confederation Rawalpindi chapter secretary general Akram Bunda said Wapda employees and the confederation had launched the campaign against the proposed privatisation.

“The investor-friendly government wants to sell all profitable organisations at throwaway rates followed and then carry out downsizing.”

He said APWC would resist any move that would lead to unemployment.

Published in Dawn, May 9th, 2015

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