KESC and its subscribers

KESC is unable to deliver supply at an affordable rate and without any major interruption to its subscribers.

It is raining again in Karachi and as one has now come to accept as a given, we have not had electricity for the past 15 hours or so. Over the last two months whenever it has rained, or even drizzled, the electricity goes off immediately and is restored after several hours.

Last weekend, the electricity of my house in Defence Housing Authority went at three  pm and came back at six pm on the next day — after 27 hours! Why is it that some areas are affected more than others while there is no difference in the amount of rain that falls on either? The answer is simple: the KESC has old equipment and its wires are dilapidated and rusty and this causes them to snap and break when it rains. However, when I called and asked the KESC staff on 118 why the light goes as soon as it rains, they said there were no issues with the wires but that the problem was caused by rainwater and humidity. This seems implausible because were this the case, then every city situated in a tropical climate and close to the sea would have an unreliable power supply.

Juxtapose this with what KESC expects its consumers to do, which is to pay their bills regularly on time, within the due date or expect their power supply to be disconnected. So, if it expects its subscribers to be prompt with payment, isn’t it only fair that the subscribers expect the power company to be prompt about dealing with complaints and fixing faults?

At the very least, an independent commission should be formed and it should be tasked with evaluating the utility’s performance. It should scrutinise why the company is unable to deliver supply at an affordable rate and without any major interruption to its subscribers.

Omar Gohar Shafiq

Published in The Express Tribune, September 14^th,  2011.