SINCE late March, North Karachi area has been subjected to around 10 hours of scheduled loadshedding daily owing to alleged electricity theft and line losses. On top of that, K-Electric (KE) routinely disconnects power to the entire feeder for close to six hours. In recent weeks, electricity has often been shut off around 7am, restored at about 3:30pm for barely 90 minutes, and then disconnected again until around 8:30pm. If the purpose of loadshedding is to address the theft, what is achieved by these additional feeder shutdowns except greater suffering for all the ordinary consumers?

Most residents of the apartment complex I live in pay their bills regularly and on time. We are neither defaulters nor involved in electricity theft. Yet, we are forced to endure prolonged outages in extreme heat, while children preparing for examinations, elderly citizens and working families bear the consequences.

The situation is particularly troubling because Clause 8.2.7 of the Consumer Service Manual of the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra) stipulates that compliant consumers should not suffer due to the defaults of others. Electricity theft is undoubtedly a serious issue, but tackling it is KE’s responsibility. Punishing paying consumers for the actions of others amounts to collective punishment rather than effective governance.

Both KE and Nepra officials need to revisit the issue, and ensure that law-abiding consumers are not made to pay the price for failures elsewhere in the system.

Amanat Ali
Karachi

Published in Dawn, July 6th, 2026