HYDERABAD: Power consumers have urged the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) and minister of state for water and power to eradicate corruption from power utilities in order to improve their efficiency.

The investigators would not have to dig so deep to unearth corruption in the Hyderabad Electric Supply Company (Hesco) and Sukkur Electric Power Company (Sepco).

They just had to have a look at the assets amassed over 15 years by linemen, line superintendents, meter readers, meter rea­der supervisors, sub-divisional officers and executive engineers of all subdivisions of Hesco to guage the scale of corruption they must have committed over the years, said protesters who held a demonstration against power breakdown in Amani Shah Colony in Hyderabad on Friday.

They claimed the corrupt Hesco officials had bought from the ill-gotten money luxurious bungalows in newly-developed Kohsar area in Latifabad and posh localities of Qasimabad.

The protesters, who had blocked the main road by putting hurdles and stones and burning tyres, complained that a pole-mounted transformer in their colony burnt out four days back and was removed by Hesco officials for repairs. But now they were not ready to install it, they said.

They said that out of 200 houses in the colony, 150 were regular bill payers. Hesco linemen, line superintendents, meter readers and meter reader supervisors openly demanded and took bribes from many houses to allow them to use power through kundas (hooks) or other means, they said.

The protesters later dispersed peacefully over police intervention.

MIRPURKHAS: Residents of different localities held demonstrations outside the press club and in their localities on Friday in protest against outages and unannounced loadshedding.

The protesters complained to journalists that their areas mostly remained without power even during heat wave persisting for the past three weeks. Their UPSs had been rendered idle and they had incurred additional expenses by using generators, they said.

They accused Hesco officers of issuing them inflated bills with ‘detection amount’ illegally added to the actual bill, which was nothing but sheer injustice to the poor.

They said the power utility officials did it deliberately to cover line losses and power theft and they had been doing it for years without fear of accountability.

The corrupt officers never heard consumers’ complaints, nor they ever bothered to rectify inflated bills and always forced poor consumers to pay up the illegal amount, they said.

Dozens of PMTs were not working in Mirpurkhas division and the officials concerned were not ready to repair them, they said.

They urged chiefs of Wapda and Hesco to reduce loadshedding hours immediately and take stern action against corrupt officers, otherwise, consumers would be compelled to launch a massive protest campaign against Hesco.

SUKKUR: CEO of Sepco has placed SDO (operation) subdivision Padidan, Irshad Ali Siyal, under suspension on account of failure to achieve recovery target and involvement in theft of electricity.

According to a Sepco spokesman, the CEO warned all officers to improve their performance or be prepared for stern action.

Published in Dawn, June 25th, 2016