From Zeeshan Mirza
KARACHI: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leaders on Sunday took K-Electric, Karachi’s sole power distributor to task, over unannounced, prolonged power outages tormenting denizens in the hot and humid weather in the port city.
Speaking outside the power distributor’s office, Fridous Shamim Naqvi, who is also the Sindh Assembly’s opposition leader, said troubling power cuts are going on since the advent of the summer season this year.
Stressing a need for finding a solution to the city’s power woes, he demanded that the government end K-Electric’s monopoly over the supply of power to the country’s financial hub.
Naqvi said the power distributor was also involved in overbilling, calling for third-party scrutiny of the power company’s meters.
MPA Aftab Siddiqui lamented that the power company has started overbilling in the city and claimed that it raked in a whopping Rs100 billion worth of profit during a period of ten years. He demanded the agreement reached with the company be made public. He said people who have put themselves in quarantine in their homes because of the Covid-19 contagion had to suffer hours of physical and mental torment because of power outages.
PTI lawmakers on Sunday urged the federal government to end K-Electric’s (KE) “monopoly” by bringing in another company to distribute electricity in an effort to solve the power issues being faced by citizens living in the metropolis.
They also announced that they will stage sit-ins outside the KE’s head office from Monday (tomorrow) on a daily basis.
Addressing a press conference in Karachi, Leader of the Opposition in the Sindh Assembly Firdous Shamim Naqvi said that the city has been facing electricity issues for a long time. “The citizens of Karachi are demanding cheap electricity,” he said, demanding an equal rate of power in the whole country.
Rejecting the power utility’s justification for prolonged power outages, Naqvi said that the KE was providing incorrect information and despite assuring the Sindh governor otherwise, had not ended load-shedding within 48 hours.
“KE’s power [generation] capacity is restricted to 600MW,” he said, adding that the power utility had also failed to maintain its plants. “Citizens have become fed up with their attitude. The time has come to think about another system for power,” he said, urging the federal government to resolve the city’s power crisis. “Another company should be brought in to distribute power in Karachi.”
