FOR two consecutive Sundays, on Jan 14 and 21, the residents of Federal B Area and other adjoining localities faced 10-12 hours of uninterrupted power supply shutdown without any prior notice.

I am at a loss to understand why and on what grounds the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra) has renewed or extended the licence of K-Electric (KE) for another two decades despite knowing the fact that its performance with respect to power supply and billing has never been satisfactory at all.

Additionally, victimising the hapless consumers by exercising long hours of breakdowns and loadsheddings even in those areas where recovery rate is almost cent per cent is not only intolerable, but a clear-cut violation of basic human rights. And all this is happening in peak winter, mind you.

On the one hand, KE is free to impose a hefty late payment surcharge on payable amount of bills regardless of the reason behind the delayed payment, while, on the other hand, KE is not answerable in the least to the consumers for imposing lengthy and unannounced loadshedding even in exempted areas. Why? In fact, it gets a 20-year extension in its contract. Why?

It is obvious that KE is no more a service-oriented entity. It has turned into a legalised mafia under Nepra’s wings whose entire focus is on enhancing the quantum of its revenue by fair means or foul. Nepra must act the way a regulator should. It should take serious notice

of the continuing extremely poor performance of KE, and impose heavy penalties on the utility company for depriving hundreds of thousands of its consumers of power supply for hours together. Would Nepra ever play its due role to bind KE down to mend its ways?

Hasan Afzaal
Karachi

Published in Dawn, February 7th, 2024