HYDERABAD: Sindh Assembly members of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) from Hyderabad have announced to hold protest sit-ins against the Hyderabad Electric Supply Company (Hesco) for continuous loadshedding in its region, issuance of inflated bills and demands for bribe from consumers to get their area’s transformers repaired.

Demanding a third-party evaluation of the Hesco system, transmission lines and line losses, they observed that its system had collapsed for want of investment.

Addressing a press conference at the party’s office here on Wednesday, MPAs Rashid Khilji, Nadeem Siddiqui and Nasir Qureshi said that they had time and again requested the Hesco management to redress grievances of power consumers who had been facing unannounced loadshedding and receiving inflated bills across the Hesco region. But, they said, the management did not pay heed to their calls and instead increased loadshedding hours in Hyderabad in particular and in other districts in general.

MPA Khilji said the inflated bills continued to be issued to consumers. Demands for bribe to repair the faulty transformers from consumers were not stopped despite lawmakers’ complaints, he added.

The power utility’s system has collapsed for want of investment, says lawmaker

He alleged that Hesco staff and its top management had been trying to provoke consumers in Hyderabad, but they (MPAs) were trying to calm them down in their constituencies to avoid any law and order situation in the city.

He said the MQM-P lawmakers had tried to raise their voice on all forums to resolve consumers’ problems, but Hesco failed to mend its ways.

The MPA said they raised the Hesco-related problems at a sit-in against K-Electric outside the National Assembly where Dr Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui had mentioned that Hesco and Sepco were public sector bodies whereas K-Electric was a private entity, but the situation was not different.

At the protest, he said, Federal Water and Power Minister Omar Ayub Khan had committed to visit Hyderabad soon to fix problems. But so far no remedial measures were taken on those issues, he regretted.

He said that the MQM-P had now decided to stage a series of protest sit-ins against Hesco outside its headquarters and at other spots after Eidul Azha to hold it accountable publicly. The protests would continue till an end to corruption, Hesco’s apathy and unannounced loadshedding, he vowed.

He demanded of the prime minister, chief justice of Pakistan and water and power minister to take notice of Hesco’s anti-people policies and resolve problems confronting the Hesco consumers in Hyderabad and other districts.

He said that no investment was seen in Hesco’s system as worn-out transmission lines were not replaced and old transformers were still being used. All those issues demanded attention, he added.

Nadeem Siddiqui pointed out that Hesco had failed in providing uninterrupted power supply even to industrial area where industrialists were not able to meet demands for their production. He said that everywhere increased power consumption led to lowest power tariff, but it was vice versa in Hesco. Maximum power consumption resulted in higher electricity bills for consumers, he said, demanding that its tariff policy should be reviewed.

When the lockdown started at 7pm and the power consumption dropped significantly, what was the reason for a continued loadshedding plan, he asked.

Equating Hesco management’s assurances to parliamentarians with Sindh government’s promises, Nasir Qureshi said the incompetent field staff of Hesco created more problems for consumers instead of resolving them. Everywhere, he added, with the commencement of the lockdown, timings of electricity loadshedding had also been increased.

Mr Khilji said line losses increased due to Hesco staff’s corruption, but consumers were blamed for power theft.

He said Hesco did not take action against power thieves identified by the MQM-P and faced humiliation. They had proposed to the Hesco chief to install meters on each transformer to know power supply input and output, he added.

He said that wherever a deal between consumers and Hesco staff failed over rectification of faults in transformers, the officials came up with power theft allegations.

He said the power minister had been informed that the Hesco system had collapsed as no new grid station was established or power transmission lines were replaced.

In Lahore, he said, 10,000 transformers were replaced by the distribution company alone.

Published in Dawn, July 30th, 2020