LAHORE: A shortage of about 5000 line staff in the Lahore Electric Supply Company (LESCO) has deteriorated quality of power supply to consumers, said sources.
They said the company badly needs immediate recruitment of 4000 linemen and 1000 supervisors to deal with distribution issues. According to the industrial circles, the performance of 13 industrial grid stations of LESCO has been heavily compromised in terms of shutdowns, low/high voltage, tripping, jerks, and main supply failures.
These grid stations included Raiwind New, Habibabad, Attabad, Jubilee, EMCO, Raiwind Old, Chaudhry Wala, Sheikhupura, Shahkot, Manga and ICI SKP. Additionally, the Mian Chunnu and Chiniot grid station of neighbouring DISCOs are also affected due to similar reasons. Especially, all the grid stations have shown dismal performance on account of tripping and jerk.
The sources said the industrial consumers are worst hit of the situation as each tripping and jerk costs them millions of rupees loss. According to the data of tripping and jerk during 1-5 Jan, the industrial consumers faced 15 tripping of power supply at Raiwind Old grid station, followed by eight at Habibabad, seven at Raiwind New, six each at Jubilee, Chaudhry Wala and ICI SKP grid stations, four at Attabad, three each at Chiniot and Manga, two at EMCO and one at Mian Channu grid stations.
So far as jerks are concerned, the industrial consumers faced 13 jerks at Habibabad, 10 at Jubilee, three each at Mian Channu, Raiwind Old and Shahkot, and one at Raiwind New and Chiniot grid stations.
The LESCO staff said the performance of SDOs and SEs has restricted to bill correction and meetings with the high-ups. They have further pointed out that majority of the existing line staff is near retirement and unable to remove supply side issues because of a hotchpotch distribution network and accessibility to various sites. There is no emergent response from the line staff to the complaints from consumers, particularly the industrial ones. The sources said this situation has not only hit the quality of work but also the customers’ satisfaction level, especially the industrial consumers. They said both production and wastage are affected out of proportion, which runs into millions of rupees when translated into financial cost.
However, the sources from the LESCO management have pointed out that excessive electronic control of mills operations without installing filters was causing damage to transformers, which is needed to be addressed to improve quality of power supply.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2022
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