KARACHI, Oct 24: The Karachi Electric Supply Corporation has launched a crash programme to clear a backlog of 12,000 faulty meters within two months.

This was announced by the managing director of the KESC, Brig Tariq Mahmood Khan Saddozai, at a press conference here on Wednesday.

He said that previously the KESC had been capable of rectifying 3,000 faulty meters in a month. “Now its capacity has been enhanced to around 6,000 meters a month.”

He told newsmen that a special cell had been established at the KESC meter department and meter testing laboratory near the Power House on Elander Road. “If a person takes the trouble to come to our special cell and lodge a complaint about his faulty meter, his complaint will be redressed within 15 days.”

The KESC managing director said that to dispel the misgivings of the KESC consumers regarding faulty meters, particularly those whose meters had recently been taken out of their premises, the power utility had prepared a mobile van which was equipped with a digital meter-testing device capable of testing electricity meters for voltage, revolutions per minute, load, frequency, etc in a very small time. “We have two digital meter-testing devices. The KESC will purchase at least three more such devices. Each device costs around Rs500,000,” he said.

The KESC managing director expressed displeasure with the efficiency of Chinese-made power meters which came as cheap as Rs250. “At present, we ask our residential consumers to obtain meters on a self-finance basis. These meters are not very good. We are considering replacing these meters with better meters, but a programme in this regard will be initiated only when we have better, alternative meters. Do not forget that every year we give out about 60,000 new connections. We will start the programme when we are prepared to do so,” he promised.

Later, KESC Superintendent Engineer Rehmatullah briefed newsmen about various types of meters. He said a meter department was headed by a superintendent engineer. The department consisted of three sections, each headed by an executive engineer. The sections were: meter change ordinary zone, meter change industrial and government zone, and meter testing laboratory and store.

He explained that unscrupulous consumers indulged in power pilferage through wiring, by dropping pressure links, by using shunt or loop, by tampering with the meter, by switching in series with the wiring and by using duplicate cable.

The KESC officials, under the supervision of officer-in- charge of the billing department, Lt-Col Asad Ali Shah, took newsmen on a tour of the meter-testing laboratory.

The newsmen were informed that an electric bench was capable of testing 25 meters at a time in eight hours. At least 215 single-phase meters, as well as 50 three-phase meters, were tested every day, KESC officials said.