KESC resumes operation, appreciates Governor's role to end unrest

KARACHI: The Karachi Electric Supply Company (KESC) has appreciated the Sindh Governor and the City Administration for their positive input into resumption of repair and maintenance work that will provide great relief to the outage-stricken general public of Karachi.

The KESC in a statement on Tuesday maintained that the repair of local faults all across the city had been blocked by striking non-core employees during the past over two months.

The KESC said that the Governor played a key role in resolving the issues through his untiring and dedicated efforts.

To ensure immediate relief to the consumers of Karachi, all business and maintenance operations of KESC started to return to normalcy from Tuesday morning after prolonged talks between Karachi administration and the KESC management.

The top and foremost priority before KESC has been to resume providing best possible services to around 20 million power users in the city, who had been suffering unduly for long weeks because of the prolonged fault-based outages caused by delay in repair work, the statement added.

The KESC management in an internal circular urged the employees to join hands and work tirelessly to provide stable power supply and prompt service without further delay in the best interest of the consumers in order to provide them immediate relief.

The KESC hoped that the City Administration would provide all support and protection that it had guaranteed for the sake of peaceful and resumption of smooth operation.

The statement further pointed out that under the agreement, the Voluntary Separation Scheme for non-core employees would continue in their best interest offering attractive benefits and bright future, and all the workers could apply under this scheme without any coercion from any side.

It said until such time that the Dispute Resolution Committee reaches a conclusion, all non-core workers who have been offered VSS would be exempted from attendance or performance of duty. Potential and possible adjustment of non-core workers in core functions would be extremely limited in number following a strict merit regime as determined by the management.

It further said that none of the dismissed or terminated employees was being taken back. Likewise, no charge sheets were being withdrawn and the process would continue and be expedited. On the other hand, some core employees who had been absent from work during the period of unrest without permission or grant of leave would not receive salary or any relief whatsoever.

The statement added that under the agreement between the management and employees, as well as the guarantee provided by the City Administration, all KESC offices and service centers would be opened to serve the citizens of Karachi without any hindrance. All protests and Dharnas would immediately come to an end.

The KESc said,"No one from the surplus pool will be retrenched at the moment. None of the workers in question will resume their previous positions or duties till further decisions and conclusions are drawn by the dispute resolution committee.

"A dispute resolution committee comprising KESC, Civil Administration and the Labour Union will be formed to discuss and work out resolution on all pending and outstanding issues.

"The committee will also evaluate each case independently and see if any worker has skill sets that can be used in any Core Function. As of now, their previous positions do not exist and are redundant.

"Payout under Voluntary Separation Scheme to all those who have already opted for it, will be handed over on priority basis. No Labour Union worker will resort to any sort of violence whatsoever and if anyone is found disrupting peace or the operating environment, that will be reported to the civil administration which had assured to take action against the culprits".

Copyright APP (Associated Press of Pakistan), 2011