New Karachi residents dogged by power theft

Prolonged power outages and electricity theft in neighbouring areas have exacerbated the miseries of people living in North Karachi.

Almost 12 hours of load shedding throughout the day in most areas of New Karachi has made the life of the residents of the area miserable, said the residents of New Karachi Sector 5F Rajput Colony.

Farooq Khan, Muhammad Tariq and Babar while talking to The Express Tribune said that power cuts occur from 7am to 8:30am; 9:30am to 12pm; 2:3 pm to 5pm, and from 7pm to 10:30pm and then from 12:30am to 1:30am and sometimes the power supply is suspended from 8am to 10pm, they said.

Most of the residents of these areas are labourers. When they return to their homes in the evening after a long day of work, they face a power outage in the sweltering heat. After the electricity comes on at 1:30am in the night, there is concern about filling the water and they sleep around 4am to 5am due to which they face severe problems during work. School going children also find it difficult to do their homework.

Meanwhile, residents of New Karachi Industrial Area Sector 11 F and No6.5 said if there is electricity supply for an hour in a day, it will be absent for three hours in the night.

Shoaib, Shahrukh, Badar, Qudrat Qureshi and Kamran Qureshi said the kunda mafia is making profit by illegal sale of electricity. Two men named Momin and Zubair provide electricity with the alleged help of some K-Electric field workers.

The unscrupulous elements in the power utility have allowed illegal sale of electricity through cables running from the North Karachi Industrial Area to nearby slums. There is no loadsheding in the industrial zone.

The criminal elements provide electricity to more than 250 houses with the help of kunda and they charge Rs10,000 in advance and Rs3,000 per month from each house.

The residents paying their bills regularly said they don't get regular power supply but electricity thieves and their customers enjoy cheap stolen electricity throughout the day.

Whenever they complain, it is said that there is theft of electricity in these areas due to which the duration of load shedding is also high.

They said that it is not their job to catch electricity thieves. If it is their job to catch the electricity thieves, then what are the employees of K Electric and the police of K Electric doing?

The residents of the area have appealed to Sindh Governor Kamran Khan Tesori and other top officials to take special and effective measures to solve their basic problems including electricity and water so that the labourers under the burden of this inflation can sleep peacefully at night.