HYDERABAD: The federal government has not been able to run the Hyderabad Electric Supply Company (Hesco) under a fully-fledged chief executive officer (CEO), supposed to be hired through a competitive process.

The process, initiated last year, was stopped halfway for inexplicable reasons and finally the chief financial officer (CFO), Faizullah Dahiri, was allowed to hold the additional charge of CEO on approval given by the utility’s board of directors (BoD).

Hesco — being a loss-making power distribution company — has a huge network with Matiari district on one end and Tharparkar on the other — which seems to be beyond its capacity to run efficiently. The company has so far failed to bring qualitative improvement in its performance. Fragility of its network infrastructure is worsening and recovery of dues, running into over a trillion rupees, shows no remarkable achievement.

Federal ministry’s experiment of posting a group of four officers from the Faisalabad Power Company (Fesco) to run Hesco did not pay off either in 2023. Officers Bashir Ahmed Gujjar (GM technical and CEO), Rana Ayub (GM), Umer Hayat Gondal (GM) and Afzal Kathia (superintending engineer) were posted in Hesco on a deputation basis for further posting / assignment in Hesco.

Ministry of power looking for a fully-fledged officer for two years, but in vain

It was done to seek replacement of the then CEO and the request was allowed on Nov 10, 2023 by Fesco. It was aimed at relieving the then CEO, Muzaffar Abbasi, who was also holding the charge in addition to his position i.e. a BoD member of Hesco.

The officers from Fesco also returned to their previous posts in Punjab (Gujjar stood retired from Hesco in Dec 2024) after failing to introduce reforms in the company for multiple reasons. Then Roshan Otho, an engineer, served as the Hesco CEO.

The company had also opted for hiring a CEO from job market for which an advertisement was also published in local and foreign media platforms.

Even interviews of candidates were held but the process was stopped halfway after shortlisting of candidates.

Finally, the incumbent CEO, Faizullah Dahiri, was allowed by the ministry to hold the additional charge.

Hesco often claims to have brought a qualitative improvement in its infrastructure but its performance during the ongoing below normal rains across its region has negated the claim. The company also claims success in recovering receivables -- the billions of rupees outstanding against private and public sector institutions -- but the available figures show that the receivables continue to pile up, ostensibly due to a nexus between the company’s line staff and power thieves/defaulters.

According to one Hesco BoD member, the receivables against private consumers stood at Rs240bn till April 2025. The utility’s own claim about receivables is ‘over one trillion’ cumulatively against private and public sector consumers until recently.

‘Loadshedding-free feeders’

Lately, Hesco has come up with the idea of making certain feeders ‘loadshedding-free’ by way of bifurcation -- an initiative that did not go well with power consumers.

These separated feeders known as ‘express feeders’ benefit the affluent alone, whilst low- or middle-income groups feel that the power utility has introduced a class-based dual system in one city.

In these loadshedding free feeders, the company bifurcated or shifted loss showing areas to other ‘feeders with higher technical losses’, where loadshedding hours have increased. “I have asked Hesco staff to compensate consumers if any fault has deprived any area of power supply in addition to regular loadshedding”, acting Hesco CEO Dahiri told Dawn.

Thursday’s and Friday’s even normal rainfall -- 45mm in two days -- damaged the power utility’s system, exposing its fragile infrastructure.

Lives at risk

Liaquat University Hospital (LUH) Medical Superintendent Dr Ali Akbar Dahiri, when contacted late in the evening, said: “The hospital has no power supply since 7am Friday; I have communicated it to the Hesco management that we have multiple intensive care units (ICUs) which are being run on standby generators since morning [for more than 12 hours]”.

The supply was still not restored until he was talking. “God forbid, what will happen in case these generators stopped functioning due to a possible fault,” he apprehended, pointing out that the ICUs had patients needing critical healthcare.

Electricity in almost the entire city had gone off at 8pm on Thursday. Although it could be restored in some areas at around 5am (after nine hours) the next day, it was restored in many areas late Friday night causing most consumers in the city to experience an outage of more than 24 hours.

Friday’s prolonged breakdown was attributed to the collapse of five poles carrying 11kV cables of Sarfaraz Baba subdivision near Ghora Ground” that necessitated shutdown of other feeders as well.

As a resultant, draining of rainwater could not be ensured and water supply to the city was seriously undermined and could not be fully normalised till Saturday.

“In fact there is no investment at all in the infrastructure. Hesco faces a serious lack of line staff that is the backbone of any power company to run the system. Present CEO is having charge only to look after ‘day to day’ affairs of Power Company,” says Wapda’s veteran trade union leader Abdul Latif Nizamani.

According to him, Hesco has a very weak system be it any sort of transmission line ... it is not repaired.

He claims there is a 60pc shortage of line staff.

Published in Dawn, June 29th, 2025