The K-Electric's 'arbitrary' policy to recover outstanding dues through coercive means like disconnecting power supplies from PMTs, depriving even the loyal consumers of electricity, has been termed "unjustified" and "illegal". Sources said that the current policy of K-Electric was being criticised by the consumers, because the major flaw in the policy was that the residents who regularly paid their bills but their houses were located in the city's defaulted areas, were also facing power disconnections.
"If they are paying bills on time, they deserve to be provided uninterrupted electricity," they added. Naveed Shekh of National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra) while talking to Business Recorder said that the regulatory body had not received any complaint from the consumers in this regard, however, if the K-Electric disconnected the power supply of loyal consumers it would be violation of the Nepra's rules.
He said that the power utility was enforcing such policies by itself, as "the regulatory authority did not issue such directives to the K-Electric." He said that disconnection of electricity from main PMTs by K-Electric was sheer violation of the Nepra's rules. While quoting consumer's service manual rules of Nepra, he said "a premises is liable to be disconnected if the consumer is defaulter in making payment of energy consumption charges (bill)s or if he is using the electricity connection for a purpose other than for what it was sanctioned."
This rule further states that "If a premise is found to be hooked directly with the disco's supply line by bypassing the metering equipments or if the consumer is using electricity direct form the disco's supply line and the person leaving in the premises is not the consumer of disco, then the disco shall inter alia process the case as theft of electricity."
"Since K-Electric has been unable to generate electricity from its own plants to the full capacity, it has been introducing different arbitrary tactics to cover its incompetence," he added. The sources said that the K-Electric instead of making its consumers aware about its policy decision, implemented the same quietly, raising disenchantment among its consumers.
Nawaz Bhatti, a resident of Nazimabad No-5, Paposh Nagar, said his area was subjected to day-long power suspension by K-Electric yesterday. He said that when he approached the K-E, he was told that the loadshedding was being carried out because his area existed in high loss category. He claimed that "I pay my bills on time. Why the authority does not remove all those illegal connections in our area and under which law I am being subjected to prolonged loadshedding?" he questioned.
On the other hand, the K-Electric spokesman claimed that the power utility before disconnecting electricity issued notices and instructions through different means to pay bills even in easy instalments. He said the PMT disconnections were usually done in high loss and very high loss areas, where consumers were largely involved in hook connections form main line, which resulted in equipments loss besides heavy load on PMT.
He said that being responsible citizens "we are supposed to identify electricity theft in our neighbourhood so that we can take disciplinary action against them." "We do realise that honest consumers are also suffering due to electricity disconnection, but there is no other option to recover outstanding dues from defaulters," he added.