KARACHI: The Privatisation Commission has decided to hand over the Hyderabad Electric Supply Company (Hesco) and Sukkur Electric Supply Company (Sepco) to the provincial government, it emerged on Tuesday.

Briefing a provincial cabinet meeting, Energy Minister Imtiaz Shaikh said that the Privatisation Commission had initially decided to denationalise all federal government-owned DISCOs but finally decided to hand them over to the provincial governments concerned.

He told the cabinet that Hesco and Sepco would be the first DISCOs in the country that would be transferred to a provincial government.

Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah said that under the Constitution, a provincial government was authorised to undertake power distribution. Therefore, he directed the energy minister to appoint a consultant firm to study the number of employees, sales growth, target losses, financial cost, and recovery ratio of Hesco and Sepco so that they could be acquired.

The cabinet agreed to acquire the two companies and decided to operate them with the help of a professional private partner.

Senior Hesco officials booked

BADIN: A case was registered against Hesco’s executive engineer Muneer Panhwar and sub-divisional officer Zaheer Memon on a complaint lodged by the Badin district jail superintendent Ali Gul Gabol on Tuesday for cutting off power supply to the prison on previous night, our correspondent in Badin adds.

The action not only plunged the jail into darkness and caused miseries to inmates amid sizzling weather conditions, but also compromised security at the prison, the complainant said.

The jail chief stated that a case against Hesco had also been filed in the district’s consumer court, which had summoned the two Hesco officers and a lineman on Oct 14.

On their part, the Hesco officials said that they had taken the action over the jail’s default on electricity bills.

Published in Dawn, October 12th, 2022