The Karachi Electric Supply Company (KESC) has earmarked its important and critical customers as being ‘strategic’ in nature and out of them of them, the Karachi Water and Sewerage Board (KWSB) is on the top of the list, the power utility said in a press release issued on Friday.
Such strategic installations are exempted from load shedding, whether planned or otherwise.
The KWSB is on the top of KESC’s strategic list for reasons more than one. Not only is the KWSB important for the city’s water supply, but also an important player in KESC’s issue of circualer debt. With an outstanding default in excess of Rs 14 billion, the KWSB is the number on defaulter, which contributes to the KESC’s cash flow woes. Needless to say despite KESC committed drive on disconnecting power supply to the defaulters, KWSB pumping stations have been never been disconnected despite their massive default. In fact, it continues to enjoy their exemption from load shedding as well, the KESC said.
The complaints of outages by KWSB at their pumping stations are also addressed via a special team which is engaged on priority on all pumping station complaints. But lately the increase in technical faults at Gharo and Pipri pumping stations are primarily attributable to the high instances of illegal power connections latched onto the dedicated KWSB power supply feeders and PMTs.
This unabated act of power theft not only causes loss to the KESC but also creates problems for the KWSB itself due to excessive tripping of their power supply network, yet there is an eerie silence by the water board on this major issue. Apart from this, the upswing in the incidents of conductor and wire thefts on the extra high tension Pipri circuit that supplies power to the KWSB KDA filter plant is wreaking havoc on the KESC’s distribution system.
These unchecked and increasing incidents of theft are causing premature deterioration of the expensive equipment dedicated to supply power to the KWSB stations.
Being an installation of strategic importance for one of the biggest metropolitan cities of the country, the KWSB is devoid of any contingency planning. Their sole reliance for power supply is on the KESC, without the provision of any back-up or alternate arrangements.
As strategic partners of the KWSB and being in the same business of provision of public utility, the KESC would advises the water utility that focusing on contingency, back-up plans and alternative emergency arrangements would be a better measure of management instead of merely engaging in a futile blame game, the power utility said in the statement.
