Lights at public parks: CDGK owes millions of rupees to KESC

City District Government Karachi (CDGK) is not paying millions of rupees electricity dues to Karachi Electric Supply Company (KESC) for street lights, installed at dozens of city government's parks across the metropolis. According to KESC sources on Thursday the monthly electricity consumption at CDGK parks was ranging from 500 to 1000 kW, thus inflicting a loss of millions upon the public utility.
They said that whenever the Company staffers come to check and remove the unnecessary lights of such parks, the CDGK men install the same again. All the additional lights, they said, are beyond the survey of the public utility and they were fully in control of the city government. The maintenance and switching off and on of all such lights was responsibility of the government.
"CDGK has all the equipment used for installation of additional lights, the company has no control over the consumption of lights in the parks," they added. The street lights in Nazimabad's 26 parks remain switch on till mid night, and it was a burden over the current shortages of power in the metropolis and non-payment of its dues was also causing the company more financial crisis, they added.
They said that hundreds of streetlights in big parks like Bin Qasim, safari park, Hill Park, Aziz Bhati Park, Jheel Park, Zamzama Park, and others in different parts of the metropolis have the consumption of thousands of kilowatts daily. "Some times these lights remain switch on in the day time also due to the negligence of CDGK staffers," they added.
However, when contacted, some sources at Civic Center said that there were no bills unpaid against the 100 parks of the government. "All such lights are automatic and there is no need to switch on or off so the allegation of negligence in this regard is baseless," they added. They said that the lights of Hill Park was disconnected 10 times due to delay in payment by the Company.
It is pertinent to mention here that the Company's current dues against public services departments of government, like KDA, KMC, Income Tax, KWSB etc, and the industries stand at Rs 22 billion, Rs 9 billion and Rs 4 billion respectively. According to some other sources, the receivables with the passage of time, has accumulated, and huge amount was due since the last few years due to unwillingness of the institutions and negligence of the public utility.