Karachiites braving outages: KESC officials roughed up by gunmen

Unidentified gunmen on Monday night roughed up the staff of Karachi Electric Supply Company (KESC)'s complaints' centre in the city and threatened them with dire consequences if the utility failed to restore power supply to their area.
Although the power demand of the city has declined to 1,300 MW from 2,600MW with the approach of peak winter season, yet rampant electricity outages and fluctuation are still testing the nerves of residential, commercial and industrial customers alike.
According to a KESC official who wanted not to be named, a five-member armed group rammed into complains center of the Company at Awami Markaz and maltreated the staffers on duty during late Monday night.
He said the assailants after beating and threatening the KESC employees asked them to restore electricity supply to their area, KDA Scheme-1.
The assailants with two gunmen, he said, come to the centre on Shahra-e- Faisal, in three vehicles, one of which was bearing the number plate GS 5449 of Sindh Government.
Condemning the reported maltreatment and threatening of the utility staff he said that "the low-ranking poor officials of the utility must not be subjected to reaction of power cuts rather the effectees of power outages should take action against the high officials of the utility".
He said that utility's failure to maintain uninterrupted power supplying was not the fault of these staffers as they had only been tasked to receiving complaints on 118 number and forward the same to the company's concerned authorities. He said actually the new m management of the utility was responsible for the power outages in the city, which was not doing anything to improve the power supply situation.
Interestingly, the official spokesperson of KESC completely unaware of the incident of Awami Markaz. According to other sources the company on Tuesday reduced to the meager generation of at least 250MW while leaving its three power units at Bin Qasim shut down continuously.
The management of the company, the sources said, was only depending on gas which, due to high consumption in winter, has also reduced drastically.
They said that neither the company was showing any willingness to boost its generation through using furnace oil, nor the government was taking notice of the public sufferings.