“The next time you face unscheduled power cuts, the Delhi government will ensure you are adequately compensated,” an excerpt from the Times of India’s June 18, 2015 story reads.
But wait, that's not all.
“If Discom (local power distributors) fails to restore power in an hour, it will have to pay a penalty of Rs50 per hour to every consumer for the first two hours, followed by Rs100 for each consecutive hour,” the Times of India story further said.
I sit in darkness with an Edge connection on my dying mobile phone, reading about compensation for power cuts. I have to delay writing this piece, sitting in Karachi — ‘formerly’ the city of lights — plunged in absolute darkness. All thanks to our “biggest power utility”, K-Electric (this is how they describe themselves on their official Twitter account).
Also read: Karachiites suffer due to fourth blackout in a week
At 4am, a ticker on a news channel read, “Power supply in all areas of Karachi has been restored: KE spokesperson.”
Ironically, that was the last thing I saw on the television right before an 8-hour long blackout. Soon, my Twitter feed exploded with condemnations of power outages which, in some areas, lasted for over 10 hours.
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KE has diligently stuck to the same explanation time and time again: The tripping of ‘so and so’ feeder, with a note saying their team is “working on restoration”.
Can or will the Sindh government regulate KE to pay consumers for unlisted outages?
Actually, how are scheduled outages even justified?
Since the beginning of Ramazan this year, this has been the fourth instance where a metropolis of 20 million people has suffered the worst power cuts, all within one week. And each time we have been told the “feeder is tripping”.
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If this is the case, there are only two possibilities that come to my mind:
- KE is not competent enough to fix the issue
- And/Or thinks Karachiites are fools
In order to justify every breakdown, KE comes up with a list of defaulters in the government who owe the private limited millions of rupees. Although, being a private limited company, it is beyond belief that they have been tolerating losses for this long anyway.
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A good solution to Karachi’s woes may be to end KE’s monopoly in the power sector.
Being consumers of a private limited company, who wouldn't want uninterrupted services for their money?
By creating competition in Karachi's power sector, not only will it improve the state of services, it would also provide alternatives to the people who are not currently satisfied with the utility.
Mumbai — estimated population of 19 million (as of 2013) — is often compared to Karachi in many ways. Unlike Karachi, however, the production, transmission and distribution of power in Mumbai is strategically divided into three separate units: The Brihan Mumbai Electricity Board (state owned), Tata Power (private) and Reliance Power (private).
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A Times of India news report (June 18, 2015): Next time you face unscheduled power cuts, the Delhi government will ensure you are adequately compensated. |
With public-private partnerships in the power sector, all the electricity produced goes to the common government-operated grid from where it is distributed to the consumers (Note: Rita Dey, an expert on the Indian power sector, who also runs her own firm: Development Management Consultancy, was my source of getting a hold of the above information.)
With the presence of multiple power companies in the city, each provider is responsible for looking into the losses of their respective locality, which directly results in more efficient recovery.
Like in Pakistan, the major defaulters of electricity payment in India are also government departments. But due to private distributions, they ensure the government pays up and promptly. Hence, the overall efficiency of the power system too, has increased manifold.
This model has proven to be beneficial so much so that India is now investing in countries like Bhutan which have an excess supply of electricity. They are now harnessing the same, as well as creating both hydro and thermal power plants.
Unfortunately, Pakistanis seem to have become desensitised, immune to exploitation. Despite paying our bills and taxes on time, we continue to further pay an exorbitant price for buying and maintaining generators and UPS'.
Instead of just waiting it out yet again, isn't it time we explored the option of going off grid?