KARACHI: The Sindh High Court (SHC) on Friday issued notices to K-Electric (KE) and others in response to a petition seeking an end to the loadshedding during the ongoing heatwave in the metropolis.

A two-judge bench, headed by Justice Zulfiqar Ahmed Khan, issued the notices to the National Electric Power Regularity Authority (Nepra) and the KE for July 15.

A day earlier, JI Karachi president Munim Zafar and others had filed a petition, through their counsel Advocate Usman Farooq, before the SHC.

The petitioners contended that the KE, responsible for electricity generation, transmission and distribution in Karachi, had been observing loadshedding for an average duration of 10 to 16 hours daily in various localities, attributing the measure to power theft-related losses.

The petitioners stated that out of the 2,109 feeders in Karachi, 1,500 faced no loadshedding while the others were subjected to outages according to their loss rates. That meant 71 per cent of the feeders had no loadshedding, they said.

The petitioners claimed that high-loss areas in Karachi faced up to 7.5 hours of loadshedding when energy demand peaked whereas low-loss areas faced no outages.

It added that the KE had increased the duration of loadshedding in phases with the city now facing two to four hours of outages at night while 40pc of the city was experiencing the worst power outages.

The petitioners prayed to the court to immediately halt the KE’s practice of loadshedding and to adhere to the Nepra Performance Standards Rules and Nepra Fine Regulations.

The petitioners also sought a directive for the KE to develop and implement a comprehensive plan to eliminate loadshedding besides taking measures to curb power theft and improve infrastructure as soon as possible.

Additionally, the petitioners urged for immediate and effective measures to ensure uninterrupted power supply to the citizens of Karachi, particularly during the heatwave conditions, and for Nepra to enforce its regulations strictly and take appropriate action against the KE for its violations.

Published in Dawn, June 29th, 2024