KARACHI: Sindh High Court on Tuesday ordered Pakistan’s power regulatory body to take stern action against K — Electric, the utility responsible for supplying electricity to Karachi, over its failure to provide power to the city.
The order came as the people rioted and set ablaze several complaint centres of the power utility and blocked road in protest against it for prolonged outages on the third consecutive day of Ramadan.
The court ordered the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra) to take action against K-Electric for resorting to unannounced power cuts, locally known as the load-shedding
The court also ordered the power utility to submit plans and measures to stop load-shedding and providing electricity to all consumers without discrimination.
The K-Electric told the court that it resorted in load-shedding only in those areas where the utility charges were not being paid by the consumers.
Rejecting the power utility’s submission, the court ordered that it must not make consumers who pay their dues regularly suffer.
Nepra lawyer told the court it had ordered the K-Electric to end the load-shedding and that if any complaints arose, the authority would take action.
The court admonished Nepra for taking a bureaucratic position and remarked that it was its responsibility to monitor the situation and address the grievances of the sufferers.
Meanwhile, agitating people ransacked the K-Electric offices and burnt tyres on the roads in protest against the unscheduled and longer power breakdowns.
In a press statement, the K-Electric said that ‘partial’ power interruption of few hours in some areas of Karachi occurred due to tripping of extra high tension (EHT) transmission line.
It said the EHT line tripped because of extra ordinary high level of humidity in Karachi in its surroundings.
The power utility warned that the high level of humidity would persist in the coming days and the load-shedding spells would be carried in different parts of the city in the next two or three days.
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Tuesday directed Minister for Water and Power, Khawaja Asif, to reduce load-shedding in the country to facilitate the masses during Ramadan.
Sharif chaired a meeting of Cabinet Committee on Energy to review the power supply situation in the country. He stressed inclusion of provincial representatives in decision making on important issues related to the power sector.
Asif said steps would be taken to end the unscheduled power cuts. He also informed the meeting that he had telephoned the Sindh chief minister and assured him that there will be no unscheduled load-shedding in the future.
