KARACHI, Oct 13: For the first time in its history the Karachi Electric Supply Corporation has recovered dues from the political parties which had put up illuminations using illegal electrical connections during their election campaigns.
Well-placed sources in the KESC told Dawn that the power utility had prepared a supplementary bill based exactly on the number of units that political parties had consumed during the election campaign.
“Normally the supplementary bill is based on the assumption that the consumer has been unlawfully consuming electricity using an illegal connection. In this case, this condition had to be relaxed because the KESC knew that political parties had been using illegal connection since the start of the election campaign,” they explained.
The sources said the dues recovered by the power utility from political parties had not been substantial but, they added, that it was a largely symbolic exercise as a result of which political parties learnt that they would have to pay the bill even if they used an illegal power connection.
They added that previously the administration of the power utility had not deemed it “prudent” to take action against political parties.
They explained that ideally the political parties should have paid a certain amount of money to the KESC which would have made arrangements for a temporary load connection.
Under KESC rules, the power utility provides temporary load connections to consumers who want to use extra power load for the time being. The temporary load connections are more expensive than the normal load connections.
They added that the previous year the KESC had failed to stop religious organizations from using electricity illegally on the occasion of Shab-i-Barat. They vowed that the next year even the religious parties would not be allowed to put up illegal illuminations during religious festivals.
“The KESC loses around Rs120 million every day to those who unlawfully arrange illuminations in the month of celebrations,” they said. They admitted that it would be hard to assess the extent of losses, “but according to some estimates, the KESC loses between 100-300 megawatts.”
The KESC officials said such widespread power pilferage also caused power breakdowns in other localities.
They said recently the power utility had carried out an operation against mosques which had been consuming electricity unlawfully through illegal electricity connections.
“As a result of the exercise, it came out that a large number of mosques had illegal power connections. Some had taken connections from other power lines as well and would start using other connections by means of a power changer,” they said.
They added that the KESC had furnished these mosques with supplementary bills which they would have to pay or face disconnection.
They pointed out that in addition to mosques in low-income localities, some mosques in the so-called posh areas had also been consuming electricity unlawfully through illegal power connections.