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KARACHI, July 16: Karachi faced massive load-shedding, in some cases continuing for more than four hours at a stretch, on Monday following the sudden breakdown of the Unit-4 of the Bin Qasim Power Plant.
The recently repaired unit developed a major fault, causing a power breakdown in a vast area of the city and a shortfall of 450-500 megawatts as against the overall demand of over 2,200 megawatts.
The KESC immediately activated its controversial load-shedding programme without making an announcement, sending a wave of anger among its consumers, already enduring hot and humid weather conditions. Many of them, after failing to receive any response from the utility’s local customer centres, rang up newspaper offices to complain that the unannounced power cuts resorted to with complete impunity resulted in damage to their electrical appliances, apart from causing other problems including disruption in water supply.
A spokesman for the KESC, however, said no breakdown occurred at the Bin Qasim power plant.
Meter matters
The consumers, reacting to yet another round of load-shedding for an indefinite period, lamented that the KESC seemed to have subscribed to the idea of finding a solution to all its problems by suspending power supply to any part of the city at the whim of the utility’s incompetent management. Criticising the management for turning down the justifiable demand of a waiver vis-à-vis the consumers’ bills for June, during which a negligible amount of power was supplied, they condemned the KESC for going ahead with its drive of replacing what they described as “accurate meters with faster ones to extort consumers.”
Top executives of the KESC appeared fully aware of the resentment among its consumers as its Executive Director (Business Operations) Syed Tanzeem Hussain Naqvi on Monday came out with a rare but soothing response to the widespread complaints, saying that consumers should feel free to contact the utility if they were unsatisfied with the accuracy of new meters.
Through a press release, he pledged that the utility would oblige the complainants by getting the meters re-tested. Without withdrawing his claim that the newly introduced meters supplied by Syed Bhai showed power consumption accurately, he maintained that the old meters had slowed down due to “aging”. He claimed that most of the old meters put to a speed check appeared slow, adding that some of them were even “dead”. Mr Naqvi said: “Average power consumption of the consumers concerned is noted down and arrears being billed accordingly.”
Testing the claim
The KESC executive director’s claim about Syed Bhai’s meters being accurate does not establish that the gadget meets the calibration standards set by the National Physical and Standard Laboratory (NPSL), Islamabad, and the Pakistan Standard Institution. Nor does the mode of re-testing the meters offered to a complainant guarantee the observance of these calibration standards.
Mr Naqvi attributes the transmission and distribution losses on a higher side to the ‘under-billing’ arguing that the old meters show less consumption.
To substantiate his claims, he says that the KESC had on numerous occasions arranged meter-testing demonstrations by “independent experts” in the presence of the members of the National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Water and Power, headed by Sardar Saleem Jan Mazari, as well as the Karachi nazim, councilors, media-men, etc. Not a single (newly introduced) meter was found running fast or beyond standard parameters, he says.
Mr Naqvi states that the meters are now being installed outside the consumers’ premises throughout the country. He says any consumer can also test his own meter for which the following method can be adopted:
Switch off the entire electrical appliances connected with the meter and if its dial is still moving, this means there is some leakage in the wiring on the premises. The leakage has to be located and corrected by the consumer and not the KESC.
For a speed test, he suggests the following method:
“Switch off all the electrical appliances connected with the meter and if the dial is stationary, note down the meter reading. Put on a 1,000 Watt bulb or light rod for one hour. The meter should record the consumption at one unit and if it does not show a higher figure, this means the reading is accurate.
