Karachi Electric Supply Company has expressed surprise over the coming down of a responsible member of Sindh Government, Haleem Adil Sheikh, to the level of setting up a private complaint office regarding electricity issues and asked if the CM's Advisor had lost confidence in the government's complaints redressal system, he had the authority and responsibility to supervise and improve its functioning.
While referring to a news conference and a protest rally addressed by the provincial government's advisor on December 18 as a "common citizen," KESC said the respected Advisor could have instead utilised an electricity related office already working with the government if he had any genuine complaints or grievances, or he could have directly contacted KESC which never did, but chose to agitate on streets as "pressure tactic" in respect of disconnection of Palm Village Farm House.
KESC clarified that five electricity connections at the Palm Village had been disconnected last week and media was allowed live coverage as per normal practice. The farm house consisted of a restaurant, a cinema house, an auditorium and other commercial activity inside the complex. KESC did not name Mr Sheikh in this regard as none of the five meters was in his name; but media might have obtained his link to the place through other sources, if any.
Reasons of disconnection included: non-payment of an accumulated amount of Rs 6.138 million outstanding against five meters of Palm Village Farm House up to December; forceful resistance and violent behaviour to past disconnection attempts; forceful continuation of domestic power tariff in spite of place being used on commercial basis; enhancement of the allocated 94 KW load to over 1000 KW load without prior permission under laws and NEPRA rules; undertaking of major construction activity at the place without any legal temporary connection with no proof of using generator either; in addition to the PMT based bulk power supply illegal use of direct low tension power supply in parallel while bypassing the meters; violently preventing KESC teams from verifying mode of usage and disconnection of illegal use on several occasions for which several notices were sent; stealing of electricity from the adjacent NADRA Farm House.
KESC expressed surprise over the fact that Mr Sheikh had earlier publicly disowned the Palm Village but now he had come out with full force to protect it. Still not sure of whether he had any link to the place or not, KESC requested the CM's Advisor to use his influence, if any, over the owners of the place, to clear all their outstanding bills and to do away with illegal use of electricity as it was his responsibility to demonstrate a responsible attitude so that the general public could follow him.-PR