KARACHI: Pak Sarzameen Party (PSP) chairman Syed Mustafa Kamal on Thursday urged the federal government to end K-Electric's (KE) monopoly, with ensuring a level playing field for other market players to independently generate, buy, transmit and distribute electricity to consumers under the pattern of cellular companies currently operating in the country.

Kamal said for the past several years, the incompetence and failure of K-Electric has proven but because of its monopoly people of Karachi have been subjected to bear its miserable conduct.

The only solution to the problems faced by the people of Karachi due to announced, unannounced power outages, excessive and unfair bills is to end the monopoly of K-Electric for the purchase and transmission of electricity and to provide electricity to various companies in Karachi in the style of cellular companies, he said.

This would not only ensure competition amongst the players, and every company would strive to improve its service quality but also the consumers can be protected from the torment of excessive bills and load shedding, Kamal said.

Kamal stated that he has sent two letters so far to the NEPRA chairman regarding the injustices of K-Electric with more than 20 million customers in Karachi in which he took a stand stating that the issues of K-Electric are of serious nature in the public interest, i.e. reimbursement of almost Rs 55 billion to over 20 million customers in Karachi, elimination of additional collection of Rs 9.5 billion under the head of bad debt, and stopping K-Electric from unjust profiteering from the public.

He raised questions about the steps taken by NEPRA so far to reduce the future liabilities of Electric from Rs 25.2 billion to Rs 43.6 billion.

The NEPRA chairman has so far been unable to answer the questions raised by Kamal in the letters.

PSP chief demanded from the state institutions to take notice of the plight of the people of the city which contributes 70 percent of the revenue to the country and 90 percent to the province of Sindh.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2020