From power cables to manholes, everything to take away in Karachi

Utilities have come up with innovative ways to counter thieves, but this adds to expenses whenever repairs are needed.

The city loses approximately half a billion rupees every year when it loses power cables, manhole covers, iron grilles, streetlight bulbs, even bathroom fittings in hospitals to thieves.

The Express Tribune gained these estimates through interviews with the officials of the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC) and the Karachi Electric Supply Company (KESC).

KESC’s 90,231 kilogrammes (kg) of copper wire were stolen in 2012, a quantity that must have needed 150 pickup trucks to be moved. This alone cost the utility around Rs100 million and forced it to reconsider its strategy on power supply to consumers.

“Copper is like gold for these criminals and it’s easily available,” said KESC CEO’s chief of staff Muhammad Usama Qureshi, who is also looking after this problem. “The way our equipment is stolen is mindboggling. They come prepared with bamboo sticks and trucks.”

The power utility runs a complex network of copper wire that zigzags hundreds of kilometres, making it an easy target. “You might think that drug addicts do that but, from what we have learned, there are gangs behind it,” said Qureshi.

Of the four connecting wires between the electricity poles, the lowest one is called the neutral. That is the one which is cut off. “Once an end is taken down, they just pull off the wire.”

For KESC, Surjani Town had the highest ratio of theft where 14,196 kg of copper wire was stolen. From Defence 11,322kg was taken away and Gulstan-e-Jauhar 9,046kg went missing. Qureshi said that in DHA people had broken the locks of substations to steal copper.

Instead of copper, the KESC has now started using aluminium wires, but they are susceptible to short circuits because of Karachi’s humidity. The company has registered numerous complaints with the police but no one has been apprehended.

KESC spends Rs10 million every month to maintain a force of 300 guards who guard its high voltage transmission power lines.

Addicts target KMC

For the city administration, the biggest threat comes from frail but committed heroin addicts, said KMC chief engineer Shafi Muhammad Chachar.

The stretch of road from Hassan Square to Lyari Expressway in Essa Nagri is notorious for damage to street lights, he said. A drug addict would work hours cutting the thick wire. He will eventually take away only a foot-long piece, leaving a useless 30-metre-long wire behind.  To counter the theft, KMC has also started using aluminium and mounting the wires on poles instead of running them underground. “We figured that the height might deter some of these people.”

KMC has improvised ways to stop the menace, said Chachar. “On bridges, these wires were supposed to run along the sides on the ground, but so much of it was being taken away that we are now concealing it under concrete.” The main problem with this method is that the entire road has to be dug up whenever there is a need for repairs. In the open market, scrap dealers pay up to Rs550 for one kg of copper. Since they do not hesitate in buying stolen wires, the stealing business flourishes.

Manhole covers

KMC keeps no record of the manhole covers it replaces every month but estimates suggest that over 2,000 of them go missing every month. “Each concrete manhole cover costs Rs1,000 and an addict often spends a few nights taking it out piece by piece for iron bars,” shared a KMC official. According to him, nothing has been spared. “Gates in parks, fences, grilles dividing roads - everything is stolen here.” Apart from the thieves who risk getting caught, there are some who operate on the corners of public hospitals, toilets, government offices and even libraries.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 31^st, 2013.