The consumers don't consider K-electric as a reliable source of electricity due to which almost 95% of the offices, factories and homes keep diesel/petrol generators as an alternate backup for electricity. This was claimed in a report "Karachi Electricity Supply of Research & Development Department" of Karachi Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI). It said a number of complaints which were brought to light during a survey of the consumers.
It says that even in areas where there is near 100% recovery, consumers face frequent electricity breakdowns which lasts 10 to 15 minutes only, sometimes accompanied by voltage fluctuations which severely damage household electronic items and cost the consumers heavily. As a general perception, more efficiency, professionalism and transparency is expected from a privatized, listed and foreign held entity. Ten years' span is a decent time to completely transform a company after privatization on the generally accepted international best practices and corporate governance standards.
However, while surveying the issues faced by the consumers, there was a long list of complaints which could have been easily avoided if complete details of policies, procedures, applicable and minimum acceptable standards, explicit time durations of provision of services, verifiable costs of equipment and comparable rate sheets, applicable rates and pricing procedures, third party meter and equipment certifications were available in black and white on the website.
There should also be available explicitly written policies in case of any common or unavoidable discrepancies at the consumer-end to ensure absolute transparency accompanied by prompt and fair redress of complaints by the entity as well as more stringent control of the authority.
There should have been negligible discretion of inspectors and other company officials to do away any doubts of over-billing, unaccounted payments or unnecessary delays to pressurize consumer to pay extra as bribes or make them pay a higher cost of any equipment.
Though there is significant improvement in many areas, there is still a wide scope of making the policies more transparent, fair and justifiable, incorporating all possible scenarios with full disclosures based on past experiences so that the entity does not get blamed for any misappropriation or injustice by the consumers as developing the consumer trust is critical for the success of any utility company, according to the report.
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