KARACHI, March 17: There was no let-up in citizens’ plight on Friday despite the revival of two dormant units of the Bin Qasim Power Plant as the Karachi Electric Supply Company faced 550 megawatts shortage a day ahead of the meeting called by the federal secretary for water and power to resolve the ongoing dispute between the KESC and Pepco in Islamabad on Tuesday.

Residents of various localities in the city said that they had been deprived of electricity for many hours and the utility did not attend to their complaints. They criticised the utility for sending them inflated bills without providing electricity and threatened that if the situation did not improve they would not pay the bills.

Representatives of market associations and industries also had similar complaints. A market association planned street protests against the KESC’s decision to pass the increased power tariff on to the consumers and termed it a conspiracy against Karachi’s economy.

Each time people asked KESC officials about the cause of power cuts, they were told that perhaps a feeder had tripped. But the utility failed to tell people how many of its 939 feeders tripped and how many were closed for load-shedding.

Insiders said that feeders had been divided in three groups. One group was generally not closed because of essential services, while the industrial group was also exempted from load-shedding. The remaining 600 feeders had been divided into four groups which are subjected to load-shedding, they said.

Besides, line losses could not be brought down to 24 per cent as envisaged in the Financial Improvement Programme (FIP) worth Rs13.5 billion, sources said, adding that line losses were nearly 35 per cent at present.

Under the FIP, sources said, 12 grid stations were planned to be built by April 2007. Only one of the old grid stations at Mauripur had been revamped, while the KESC had not acquired land for the remaining grid stations so far, they said.

Sources pointed out that a combing operation was mounted by the military-led management of the utility and an extra load was sanctioned for Rs6,500 a kilovolt (including Rs3,000 as security deposit). About Rs14 billion were collected on the pretext of development work and about Rs600 million to Rs700 million were collected as commission for enhancing KESC’s revenue, but it was not reflected in system improvement. Instead of any improvement, such measures resulted in the closure of 25 per cent of small industries. The persisting situation was forcing the closure of business and industry to the detriment of the country’s interest.