HYDERABAD: Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) labour wing, Hyderabad region, has appealed to Prime Minister Imran Khan to take notice of the “excesses” on the part of the Hyderabad Electric Supply Company (Hesco) which, it observed, was punishing its consumers for casting their votes in favour of the party.

Speaking at a press conference at the local press club, labour wing Hyderabad region president Javed Khan and joint secretary Zahid Khan, along with PTI district president Wasim Mughal, vowed to take up power consumers’ issues with Hesco.

They said Hesco issued 375 transformers but consumers were still made to pay Rs40,000 to Rs50,000, for one meant for their respective locality, to the Hesco staff concerned in different sub-divisions, which was a great injustice with the people of Hyderabad.

Condemning such “Hesco tactics”, they questioned what kind of equipment and safety kits were being provided to staff by the power utility for which allocations were made. There was a shortage of staff in each sub-division which compounded problems of people as rectification of faults took four to five days.

They said detection bills had become a vital tool for extortion and Hesco officials were doing away with such bills after taking 40pc of the billed amount in bribe for which proper planning was done. The whole process involved line superintendents, SDOs and XENs, they said, warning that Hesco must put an end to such tactics and extortion.

Pointing out that maintenance staff mostly remained missing, they demanded a probe into their failure to attend their duties in Hyderabad in recent rainfall.

They alleged that Hesco staff was deeply involved in power pilferage and they even dodged the teams that conducted surprise raids. The teams were hardly able to lay hands on a few corrupt officials within Hesco, they added.

They claimed that Hesco was recovering money of power theft from bona fide consumers, and urged the water and power minister to visit Hyderabad and hold an open katchehry (hearing).

They said that 250,000 people had voted for the PTI in Hyderabad and performance of Hesco had put a question mark over the PTI government. They said the PM must know that Hesco was punishing the people of Hyderabad under a conspiracy for voting for the PTI.

They asked Hesco chief executive officer (CEO) Abdul Razzaq to take action and put things on right track. They said he must put in place a system under which consumers could lodge their complaints directly.

They said the PM and water minister should order action against corruption in Hesco.

Meanwhile, protest by prolonged outage-hit consumers of Hesco’s Mirpurkhas division continued on Tuesday in different localities against the power utility. The protests are being held since Thursday when the first drop of rain deprived many localities of power supply and Hesco failed to normalise the situation since then.

In the past one week, a number of power transformers had burnt out due to overloading and Hesco officers failed to get them repaired, leaving consumers to face great difficulties in the sweltering heat and humid weather conditions.

Sources said that Hesco officers had now arranged mechanics for the repair of faulty transformers.

Hesco officers have also sought time from the affected consumers for the process and gradual normalisation of power supply situation in the sub-division.

Published in Dawn, August 12th, 2020