The Karachi Electric Supply Company (KESC) has given government hospitals across the metropolitan three days to pay dues of Rs 0.21 billion, failing to do which would result in discontinuation of power supply to them.
This move could multiply the sufferings of thousands of patients who are already putting up with poor health facilities at various government hospitals in the city.
According to the KESC, the Sindh Finance Department has yet to clear the long-outstanding electricity dues of the leading government hospitals of the metropolis, the cumulative figure of which runs into hundreds of millions.
The power utility has already served several notices to the Health executive district officer (EDO) and other leading state-run hospitals, but to no avail.
The KESC had not exercised its right to disconnect power supply to the hospitals until now, primarily to avoid causing inconvenience to the public.
The accumulated dues that the finance department has to pay on behalf of the state-run hospitals are in excess of Rs 0.21 billion and the continued fudging over payment has now led to serving of a final three-day disconnection notice.
According to the break-up, the Health EDO owes the KESC around Rs 39.94 million, the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre Rs 35 million, the Lyari General Hospital Rs 5.3 million, the Civil Hospital Karachi Rs 38.3 million, and other hospitals Rs 90 million.
According to the management of these hospitals, they have approached the relevant ministry for the release of funds, the disbursement of which is hitherto uncertain.
This has placed the general public and the under-treatment patients at risk due to the imminent power supply disconnection, which, according to the KESC’s notice, would come into effect if no firm action is taken in the next three days to clear the outstanding dues of Rs 0.21 billion.
Since the past couple of years, it has been the policy of the KESC management to exempt the above-mentioned public service institutions from load shedding and to provide them priority service in case of any power failure or unplanned power outages in view of larger public interest.
However, the hospital managements and the health and finance departments have not been responding to the pending issue for a long time.
In addition to the unpaid arrears, the monthly bills are also accumulating, which, in turn, are snowballing the already enormous payable figure.
This unwarranted burden on the already-constrained financial resources of the KESC have left the power utility with no option but to serve disconnection notices to these public health facilities to nudge those responsible for paying the bills.
The KESC has asked the authorities concerned to immediately pay the pending electricity bills to save the general public from any annoyance.
