Supplementary bill assessment: KESC asked to make procedure public

The billing department of Karachi Electric Supply Corporation has been directed to make public supplementary power bill assessment procedure.
This was directed by the Head of army monitoring teams (AMTs), Major General Mohammad Ashraf Saleem, on Wednesday while presiding monthly performance evaluation meeting of power utility at Air Defence Headquarters, Malir Cantt.
He asked KESC to make transparent the procedure of preparing supplementary bills and the officials should take extra burden of fully convincing and winning the confidence of the electricity consumers about such bills, while disconnection of supply should be the operative procedure for defaulting consumers in order to maintain 100 percent recovery of the current bills.
The Managing Director of KESC, Brigadier Tariq Saddozai informed the meeting that during the first six months of 2003-04, the trend has been set to systematically reduce the T&D losses which have been brought down to 38 percent as target, according to the financial improvement plan. However, efforts were continuing to further bring them down by improving the recovery ratio of the current billings and government dues.
Reviewing the performance of distribution department, General Ashraf Saleem appreciated the performance of the distribution engineers and said that efforts should continue to maintain uninterrupted power supply to achieve high image in public eye.
Incharge distribution Chief Engineer Jamil Gul informed the meeting that during last month no major power breakdown was reported and the number of local complaints also decreased by 10 percent compared to the same period last year and out of the total complaints registered during the month 86 percent were repaired within four hours by KESC complaint centres staff.
The meeting was also informed that during December 2003, the power utility provided 4,612 new connections, laid two new power supply feeders.
A new high tension link was made and 17 new pole mounted transformers in the city's distribution network to make it more reliable and fault free.
The meeting was also informed that the power connection package for low-income areas has been greatly appreciated by the public in kunda infested Kutchi Abadis of Korangi, Landhi and Hub.
During last two weeks camps had been put up by the KESC and were replacing Kundas with metered connection and charging only Rs 500. The cost of such connections has been subsidised by KESC and has been kept within Rs 3,000 and the remaining amount will be collected from the consumers in easy instalments.
MD-KESC.
Brigadier Tariq Saddozai, Head of AMTs Brig. Syed Javaid Iqbal and other senior army and KESC officials attended.-PR