HYDERABAD: PPP Senator and member of the Senate standing committee on water and power Aajiz Dhamrah has slammed the alleged corrupt officials of the Hyderabad Electric Supply Company (Hesco) and Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) who, according to him, have made lives of people miserable because of prolonged power loadshedding and inflated bills.

He said 16-to-18-hour power loadshedding was taking place while the corrupt officials of Hesco and FIA were conducting crackdowns in the name of power theft, but they were hiding corruption of their colleagues who were taking colossal amount of money for power stealth from consumers.

He said this while speaking to a delegation of the PPP youth Hyderabad division headed by its president Ahsan Abro. He said it was the staff of Hesco, from linemen to executive engineers, who were involved in giving tips to consumers on how to steal electricity and pay minimum bills.

He said the innocent consumers who were using electricity honestly had to pay inflated bills for nothing because of so called line losses and power theft. He said the Hesco officials were blackmailing and frightening consumers by FIA officials. Their actions were intolerable, he said.

The senator said he would raise the matter against the corrupt Hesco officials in the Senate committee and talk to the federal minister for water and power about the grievances being faced by the people of Sindh.

Earlier, members of the delegation showed him the inflated bills received by consumers after installation of new digital metres. An inflated bill of a clerk was worth Rs10,450 while he receives Rs23,000 salary a month while an assistant having grade 14 with Rs36,900 salary received a bill of Rs18,180. The delegation members also complained against corrupt Hesco officials of Qasimabad.

The senator assured the delegation that he would meet the Hesco chief executive officer (CEO) regarding the complaints and present a motion against Hesco in the upcoming senate session.

Biometric system

Sindh Education Secretary Dr Fazlullah Pechuho on Tuesday said the biometric verification system would help identify ghost employees and ensure attendance of absent officials of the education department.

At the inauguration of the biometric system held at the directorate of education, Hyderabad division, he said the system had started working in Larkana, Sukkur and Nawabshah and verified the data of 20,000 employees.

He said the Sindh government was making efforts to promote education so that youth could get quality education and play their role in the development of the country. The government was implementing a policy for better education system through it, he said.

He said that having learnt about closure of some schools, a committee had been formed to work on it. Those schools had been built in the regime of former president Gen Pervez Musharraf for providing sitting facility to Waderas (feudal lords). They were being restored for education, he said.

The secretary said he would introduce such a system through which a common man could complain against an absent teacher by SMS. And such absent teachers could be identified immediately and their whereabouts would be known, he said.

He said education was the right of every man and it would be possible if parents played their role with unity.

Parents of rural areas had destroyed the future of their children because they sent them to graze animals and not to schools.

Higher secondary schools director Rasul Bux Shah, primary schools director Allah Bachayo Khaskheli, education works executive engineer Ali Gohar Abro and others were present on the occasion.

Published in Dawn, May 27th, 2015

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