Fishermen community of tiny islands - Baba and Bhit on Wednesday threatened to block navigational channels at Karachi port, if their demands were not met till May 20. The fishermen community on Tuesday gathered on Native Jetty, chanted slogans for restoration of electricity supplies to the islets, fearing the K-Electric power suspension would cause severe hardships to the aged and children as mercury levels rise.
The said electric power supply to their islands had been cut-off by K-Electric, causing non-availability of water to the residents for the last five days, amid soaring temperature. However, owing to the protest demonstration on the Native Jetty Bridge halting transportation of cargo bound for the port on Tuesday, K-Electric restored power to the area.
"We are being subjected to hours-long load shedding; moreover, the power utility has been charging inflated electricity bills on the financially constrained fishermen community." Native Islander Fisherman Association's (NIFA), Joint Secretary Hassan Ali Bhatti told Business Recorder.
Rs 190 million dues that KE is presently demanding from us are not new, but 32-year-old liabilities, he alleged. We are ready to pay bills as per the actual meter readings. The community representatives are also making efforts to settle the K-Electric's genuinely outstanding payments. He alleged that K-Electric employees instead of dispatching monthly bills to each house individually just dump the bills at barber shops in the neighbourhood. The area people themselves, then have to go looking for the bills. Often K-Electric bills get mixed as majority of fishermen being illiterate, can't identify bills having identical names.
Despite several requests, K-Electric has yet failed to set-up a single office to entertain complaints of 30,000 residents of the twin Islands. NIFA Joint Secretary questioned, how can we get our power related issues resolved in such circumstances? - K-Electric officials don't bother to listen us.
"We want K-Electric to establish an office, and stop over-billing the poor consumers. These are the major demands we have already put forwarded to the utility. Hope the management considers our requests," Hassan Ali Bhatti said. "Otherwise, we will be left with no choice but to block the navigational channels with boats at the Karachi Port on Friday, May 20. The residents have already been informed through an announcement made from the local mosque this morning" said Bhatti.
The hundreds of protesters triggered a massive traffic chaos and ceased all kind of cargo transportation to the seaport. Commuters also suffered the gridlock for several hours as the protestors were unwilling to end their agitation till their demands were met.
A KE spokesman said disconnections of Baba and Bhitt Islands took place on May 16. The power utility had earlier disconnected the two islands due to rising outstanding dues, decreasing paying ratio and low recovery.
"Dues from these two islands had crossed the Rs 190 million mark which was a concern for K-Electric and its operations. Despite notices and repeated appeals, the residents refused to pay or settle their dues. The recovery ratio for monthly bills for Baba Island was as low as 16 percent whereas Bhitt Island has three dedicated PMTs which also have a low paying ratio. After the islands were disconnected, senior representatives from the community approached K-Electric and assured the power utility of settling their payments and dues, after which KE representatives reconnected their power supply, he concluded.