Saturday, July 25, 2009
Every Pakistani is accustomed to the loadshedding phenomena, but i will keep Karachi, a mega metropolis bustling with industrial activities in context. People here have faced every hurdle that the Karachi Electricity Supply Corporation has hurled out to the Karachiites. May it be the June 17th blackout or the current blackouts which occurred after the recent rainfalls in karachi. Apart from these black outs, people in karachi have gone through agonizing loadshedding sessions for upto 8 hours continuous. This ultimately provokes the people to start vandalizing government and private property, resulting in losses amounting upto milions of ruppees. The official statements that are issued by the KESC say that they are facing a shortfall of so and so megawatts and there is literally nothing that can be done to put an end to it. Now the question that irks me is that when elections were in progress, February 18th was the big day, and there was no loadshedding in karachi, not for a single minute. Then recently, during the final of the T20 worldcup, there was no loadshedding. The question that pops in my mind in that from where does electricity come from on those days? does it magically start generating in the turbines? I think that production is being kept slow, so as to save as much fuel possible to increase profits. It is acknowledged that since KESC went private, the power situation in the city has worsened. What might be good for the karachiites in the future is that the KESC is nationalized again and the government has full control over the functions of the said department. The workers have an excuse of saying that the KESC is now privatized and they cannot help it if the authorities fail to provide electricity or rectify cable faults in due time. I have heard KESC workers say that when people asked them why there was no electricity in our area for Four days straight.
Nationalization is the way to go for KESC and for providing relief to the people of karachi.
Farooqu|
2 comments:
So you think that the govt (lead by a certain hardworking and successful industrialist Zardari) can handle running KESC?
Why do you think KESC and WAPDA are in the state they are? It is because the govt has been running them.
Yes, if nationalised, KESC will immediately stop load shedding, but the whole system is close to collapse and nationalisation is not going to help.
The problem is strucutural and historical.
30 years of govt ownership means that the everything is messed up. There has been minimal maintenance of the plant and machinery. KESCs generation plant is at the end of life (new plant is under construction). The distribution system is being overhauled.
KESCs new management has been there for 9 months. Its not going to be able to clean up 30 years worth of mess in less than 2 years.
Maq
I totally agree with what you have said, but still saying that the department is privatized and they control the places where repair work has to be done to remove cable faults. These were the words of one KESC supervisor who was being asked these questions because our whole area had been without electricity for the past 4 days. Yes it is also a fact that our government likes to pump people to the extent that they come to trust them fully, what i think if the KESC is nationalized again under this government, we might just not have load shedding for one or two months, but then it will get worse than it is now. But still there are certain issues regarding the KESC. They terminated the power purchasing agreement they had with DCL (D.H.A Cogen Plant) in April. That plant is ready to provide 80 MW to the grid. DCL is pushing for another contract and it requests KESC to provide it that required amount of electricity for which is needed to jump start the plant so that it can produce electricity to its extent. A german engineer who is here at the moment, if he leaves, the start will have to be pushed back to december even if the KESC agrees to have another agreement with DCL. Now can anybody clear why the KESC is not purchasing power from DCL while it can certainly help reduce loadshedding to a great extent? Maybe because they don't want to pay that much for electricity?
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