IT is pity that the government appears helpless in holding someone responsible for the present electricity crisis in Karachi where people have been facing a misery in the form of hours of power outages in this extreme hot and sultry weather.

On June 29, a high-level meeting of all important ministers, secretaries, K-Electric management and advisers deliberated upon the causes and issues of otherwise avoidable power outages in Karachi. Unfortunately, it failed to identity who is responsible for the crisis.

Instead, the meeting decided to constitute another inquiry committee to ascertain the causes of the problem without announcing any measures to end power outages.

Had there been capable and competent participants in the meeting, the responsibility for of this electricity crisis would have been fixed and many heads would have rolled.

As things stand, the entire remaining country should be prepared for another round of power outages and a power tariff hike. There is a suppressed power demand at the moment owing to the slowing down of industrial and commercial activities. Once things become normal, loadshedding will be unavoidable. Is accountability restricted to politicians?

Are people responsible for managing and delivering good and efficient services to the people in different sectors exempt from accountability?

One wonders how long my fellow citizens will have to suffer from so many problems.

An Engineer
Lahore

(2)

FOR the last several days, K-Electric has been interrupting the supply of electricity after midnight, early in the morning and in the noon for hours even in areas which are exempted from loadshedding.

People are suffering owing to such measures. Block-12 of F.B. Area is amongst those areas which are experiencing the menace of scheduled and unscheduled power outages day in and day out despite paying exorbitant bills every month.

Another deplorable state of affairs on the part of the KE billing department of KE is that they have billed the consumers twice in June. Due date for the payment of the second last bill was June 4, whereas the last bill was required to be paid by June 29.

Normally, people get their salaries on or after the first of each month and it is almost impossible for a salaried person to pay a fat amount of KE bill twice in a month. Would the minister for water and power look into the matter and ask KE to mend its ways?

Hasan Afzaal
Karachi

Published in Dawn, July 14th, 2020