KARACHI, Aug 4: Despite much-publicized administrative over-hauling, the performance of the complaint centres of the Karachi Electric Supply Corporation leaves a lot to be desired.

Well-placed sources told Dawn on Saturday that while high-ranking officials in the power utility had been entrusted with the task of ensuring that complaint centres swung into action the moment they received a power complaint, in most cases there was a considerable time-lag between the occurrence of a power fault and its rectification.

They added that the time-lag had also something to do with the fact that the 53 complaint centres of the KESC were not well-equipped enough to meet the emergency demands of over 1,700,000 consumers.

KESC officials point out that a complaint centre does not remove faults on a first-come-first-served basis. “Locations and distances determine which area the complaint centre will go to first. The official in charge of a complaint has to ensure that maximum number of complaint are attended to at the earliest.”

The sources say that the reason why most consumers find that telephone lines of a complaint centre are incessantly engaged is that they have at most two telephone lines. “When a feeder trips, a large number of consumers lose their power supply. The KESC complaint centre can, however, receive only two complaints at a time. Consumers see red when they find that the telephone lines are engaged.”

The KESC officials claim that as soon as a fault occurs, the complaint centres become inundated with phone calls and motorized tower ladders (MTLs) are dispatched.

Insiders tell Dawn that as soon as all MTLs and trucks have left a complaint centre, the KESC staff, in some cases, leave telephones off the hook in a bid to avoid registration of complaints that they cannot rectify immediately.

The third factor which causes a delay in rectification of faults is linked to the fact the KESC staff at complaint centres work in shifts. At complaint centres, the staff work in three shifts round the clock.

The insiders tell Dawn that if a complaint centre receives a complaint at, say, 8pm, the KESC staff wait for their shift to end so that the next shift rectifies the carried-over fault. This deliberate delay, they maintain, increases the number of complaints.

KESC officials have told Dawn that in the event of a strike — so frequent in Karachi — the vehicles of the complaint centres are under orders not to venture out for security considerations. As a result, faults remain unrectified for a long time, making consumers feel all the more helpless after having been forced to stay indoors due to the strike.

The fourth factor which is largely responsible for a delay in rectification of power faults is related to the fact that most MTLs remain incommunicado once they have left the complaints centres. It has been gathered that a large number of MTLs are not equipped with a wireless system necessary for keeping the KESC staff on the MTLs — a lineman, a helper and a karkun — informed about faults as soon as they occur.