Ending Karachi’s electricity crisis

KARACHI: This is with reference to your recent coverage of Karachi’s power crisis and the KESC’s troubles. The fact is that the utility’s current management has done a lot to improve performance. Before criticising the KESC, one should not forget that it is now a private entity. In most cases, when a state-owned corporation, and that too one that is providing an essential service, is privatised, some retrenchment of employees follows. It should also be remembered that in the past, companies like KESC hired staff in excess of its operational requirements and that this was done to accommodate the favourites of the party or institution in power.

The same thing happened in the banking sector when MCB, Allied Bank and Habib Bank were all privatised. To ask the KESC to take back the employees that it has laid off, after assessing that they are not needed and hence only a drain on costs, is a bit much since after all, one of the primary goals of companies in the private sector is to maximise profits.

Furthermore, how do the protesters justify blocking major roads and arteries? How will this possibly gain them any public sympathy? As it is, most ordinary people blame the striking workers for the predicament the city finds itself in with otherwise routine power faults left unattended for hours. In any case, a solution needs to be found quickly to ending the impasse. One hopes that this will happen by the July 25 deadline reportedly now set by all sides.

Engr Nasir Jamal

Published in The Express Tribune, July 24^th, 2011.