SAMA castigates KESC

The Saddar Alliance of Market Associations (SAMA), Tuesday withdrew their strike call after an assurance by Chief Minister’s Advisor Ms Sharmila Farooqi for solution of their problems like load-shedding and a formal contact with Distribution Incharge KESC Jan Mohammed Abbasi in this respect. The Advisor also accepted an invitation to visit the office of SAMA on Wednesday and said that Nazim Saddar Town too would accompany her.

The Advisor was informed that President KCCI Anjum Nisar too would come for a meeting.

During meeting with the 5-member SAMA delegation, led by Faheem Ahmed Noori, the Advisor was apprised that unannounced load-shedding has adverely affected their business and over 120 registered markets’ Alliance had decided to come on roads in protest against ongoing load- shedding during the next two days.

However, they said, they are withdrawing their strike call on her assurance that their load-shedding related issue would be got resolved at a higher level.

Sharmila said that special attention is being paid to solving the problems of traders on priority basis and asked them to support the government in coping with the energy crisis and try to open shops around 8 or 9 in the morning and close them by 9 p.m. so that energy is saved to possible extent.

She was informed that KESC is indulging in average and over billing while speed of meters is higher by 20-30 percent and no heed is paid when they go KESC authorities for redressal of their complaints.

The delegation said that there is no arrangement for parking in Saddar’s important markets and people, in collusion with traffic personnel, park their vehicles in front of shops and go away. They said this not only block access to shops but such vehicles also pose security risk.

They described cleanliness as non-existent although they pay taxes on this count. They demanded that all the clauses of the agreement between government and KESC be made public as the people are unaware of the same although they pay the bills and KESC pays its employees from their taxes. —APP

How KESC trying to save their property?

The Karachi Electric Supply Company (KESC) has announced the establishment of community support teams to help needy persons affected in electricity-related rain emergencies.

This was announced by KESC Director Corporate Communications Ayesha Eirabie, at a media briefing here on Saturday. She was accompanied by the utility’s Director Distribution Zahir H. Rizvi.

She said that these teams had been located in all the four regions of the KESC and they had heavy vehicles that could work in standing water, emergency generators, water pumps and first aid kits. They would also have constant support from the Edhi and Cheepa centres. In case of an emergency situation during the coming rains, the teams could provide immediate relief to the persons affected by a rain-caused emergency and drive them to hospitals. The consumers could call these teams for help at UAN 111-333-700.

In reply to a question, she said that the telephone lines of KESC’s call centre-118, affected by the constraint in PTCL’s fibre optic, had resumed functioning. The telephone lines of maintenance centres which had been affected by the rain water had also been restored, she added. In response to another question, she said that the Regulatory Team of the KESC had been preparing answers to the questions raised in the notice from the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra).

She said that the generation, transmission and distribution system of the utility had been working normally and Friday night’s rainfall had not caused any issue. A few feeders had tripped which had been fixed within a matter of minutes.

KESC Director Distribution, Zahir Rizvi, informed the media on this occasion that at 2pm on Saturday, the KESC had been supplying 2039 Megawatts (MW) electricity to the city against the same demand of electricity and there had been no load-shedding. Pakistan Electric Power Company (Pepco) had been supplying 640 MWs, he added.

Earlier the KESC said that the Cantonment Board Clifton (CBC) had damaged four KESC cables during water cleaning owing to which electric supply to some parts of Clifton was suspended. KESC teams were working to restore supply as soon as possible.