HYDERABAD: The Sindh chapter of the Pakistan Wapda Employees Paigham Union has demanded removal of manager of the Lakhra Coal Power Plant in the wake of massive fire incident in the plant on July 20.

The union leader Mohammad Sajjan Panhwar said at a press conference at the press club on Wednesday that the massive fire caused serious damage to the 150MW power plant built at a cost of Rs16 billion and led to the shutdown of the plant.

He said the losses ran into millions of rupees and blamed corruption and incompetence of the plant manager, Ghulam Shabbir Jatoi, for the fire incident.

On July 20, one of the units of the power plant suddenly stopped working following eruption of fire in 6kV breaker room which soon engulfed breakers of the two remaining units, he said.

He said the union had been raising the plant’s issues but the plant management never bothered to take notice. The breaker rooms were not cleansed although millions of rupees’ expenditure was claimed on this pretext and their contracts were awarded by Jatoi to his relatives and frontmen, he alleged.

Mr Panhwar said that layers of ash continued to gather on cables because of neglect and mismanagement. A similar incident was reported four months back in unit-III but it was not disclosed to media, he said.

He said the July 20 fire was caused by a short circuit because huge air-conditioning plants were not working at that time in the breaker room.

Fake bills were claimed and the fund swallowed up for the maintenance of fire-fighting system which failed to work the day the fire broke out, he alleged.

He claimed that Punhal Jamali was equally involved in the wrongdoings along with Jatoi as he was his ‘frontman’. Funds for the rehabilitation of boiler of unit-I were also misappropriated, he said.

He accused the management of trying to repeat a Sukkur-like incident in which six workers were killed.

The ash handling system was modified at a cost of Rs4 million although it hardly cost Rs1m while residential quarters in the powerhouse colony had been allotted to outsiders on rent, he said.

He said that Paigham union workers faced victimisation when they raised the plant’s issues.

If any harm came to any regional or central office bearer of the union after this press conference Mr Jatoi would be held responsible, he said.

Published in Dawn, July 27th, 2017