Economic distribution is no joke. It has incited revolutions, blood relations have gone awry, countries have gone to war, and what not. Little wonder then that certain corners have been raising din over KEs (formerly KESC) load shedding distribution.
KE distributes load shedding to different geographical locations on the basis of losses stemming from that region.
If a region has less than 2 percent losses, it faces the least, if not zero, load shedding. If a region has higher losses, thanks to non-payment of dues or kundas of electricity theft, then the region faces much higher load shedding. In the case of latter, those who are honest consumers of electricity also end up facing the brunt of load shedding due to the unfortunate fact of their less honest neighbourhood.
The critics - mostly from Pakistans north - call this a simply unjust strategy. They argue that electricity isn just an economic good but also a social good, which implies that any power distribution firm ought to supply power to anyone who is willing to pay for it. Hence, the KEs decision to distribute more load shedding in high loss areas is unjust because it also compromises the normal life of honest power consumers living in the high loss areas.
It is true that electricity is also a social good than just an economic good. But to distribute load shedding equally in both low or zero loss areas and high loss areas is also unjust, because it penalises those who pay for electricity on the cost of those who steal electricity.
With nothing meaningful to add to this counter argument, the critics then bemoan that when KE distributes relatively higher load shedding to high loss areas, it is akin to assigning quasi collective responsibility when in fact there has been no prior collective agreement to that affect. Critics point out that Karachis urbanites do not exactly live like the traditional FATA society, nor is electricity sales similar to the sale of microfinance loans, which are marked by collective responsibility.
This looks like an interesting claim. But once you scratch the surface it becomes a frivolous argument, simply because the KE never talks about collective responsibility. It never says that honest electricity consumers are responsible for the scores of dishonest consumers living in the high loss areas.
On this note, this column would like to highlight that KE is a business concern. Unless there is any legal obligation to do so, (which most observers are not privy of) any power distribution company should be entitled to choose its markets.
If supply to a certain market does not make a business case because of theft, no company should be under compulsion to sell electricity to those handfuls of honest ones in that market, at the cost of making huge losses from that market. And indeed if a company must be compelled to do so, then the government should also ensure proper law enforcement to arrest power theft. Without proper law enforcement, it would be tantamount to forcing a company into losses.
There are other potential solutions to this problem. These include auto metering and other related technologies. But for one they are investment heavy, and second they will take time to roll it out.
The other solution, proposed by Kashif Ansari, CEO of Sachal Energy, is to create a kind of "electricity cooperatives", whereby housing societies in any given city can purchase power and assume collective responsibility. They may even have their own one big power generation capacity (as has been done by Bahria Town) to meet any shortfall, instead of each household having its own power generator. Kashif says that having one big generator for a housing society is more efficient, than each household having small generators of their own.
Having electricity cooperatives is an interesting idea indeed. However, considering that high loss areas are also low income areas without the sense of being a housing society, it would require quite a bit of effective and transparent governance. Then again, effective governance is the missing element in the first place.
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