LAHORE: The Ministry of Water and Power is planning to implement a swift integrated consumer complaints resolution management system to deal with complaints related to power breakdowns, generation, demand and supply, transmission, dispatch, distribution, inflated bills etc.

Under the plan, the ministry has assigned its subsidiary—Power Information Technology Company (PITC)—to introduce a state-of-the-art complaint resolution management system initially in three distribution companies (Discos), including the Islamabad Electric Supply Company (Iesco), Lahore Electric Supply Company (Lesco) and one from either Sindh, Balochistan or Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, according to a senior official who attended a meeting held at Wapda House on Saturday.

The meeting, presided over by Federal Secretary for Water and Power Yousaf Naseem Khokhar, was attended by the chief executive officers (CEOs) of various Discos, National Transmission and Despatch Company’s officiating managing director and senior officials representing the Water and Power Development Authority (Wapda), Pakistan Electric Power Company (Pepco) and PITC.

“The complaint resolution system could help the consumers lodge various types of complaints quickly,” an official privy to the meeting told Dawn.

“The PITC has been assigned to start initial work by July 25 in order to implement the plan,” he added.

Since Iesco and Lesco were already working on the plan, they presented their proposals in the meeting. The PITC officials were asked by the authorities to study the proposals and incorporate them (if viable) in the ministry’s plan.

Talking to Dawn, Water and Power Secretary Yousaf Naseem Khokhar said: “We want to execute the plan within a short span of time. We want quick registration and resolution of all types of complaints while keeping the consumers updated”.

Mr Khokhar said it was need of the hour to end the impression of Discos among the public. He said the project might be expanded to other Discos, subject to its success in the companies where it was being introduced. The project was started at Iesco and Lesco etc as these companies had good resources, he added.

“But we will not be limited to a few companies as we will offer all the companies (Discos) to come forward and submit their proposals in this regard,” he explained.

Published in Dawn, July 16th, 2017