Come the New Year and Karachis jails might be filled with thieves - the electricity ones though. The Karachi Electric Supply Corporation (KESC) is vigorously running an anti-theft campaign, counting down 30 days as the last chance for all who steal or otherwise don pay for the power consumed.
KESC has been on the receiving end of the kunda system for long and the problem does not seem to be phase away despite various efforts made through media campaigns in the past. It seems that the KESC has finally had enough of volunteer submission and polite reporting of power theft, as the latest campaign plans to impose heavy penalties such as Rs5 million and three years imprisonment to defaulters and thieves.
The company is expecting the campaign to yield better fruits than the previous ones, which, according to the companys spokesperson, have yielded in a 3~4 percent improvement in the heavy T&D losses. It should be kept in mind that nearly two-thirds of the T&D losses stem from non-payment and electricity theft.
Though the campaign is in its early stages, it is odd that the advertisement through billboards, which is considered vital in such campaigns, has not yet touched the high theft, low payment areas yet. Instead the billboards have been placed in the relatively good areas at the moment. One hopes that KESC will spread public awareness in areas where it is most needed or else there will be a public riot when the deadline expires.
There still are loopholes, which, if left unplugged, will make the company face various problems. The biggest problem is that of non-payment from the public sector (read: government offices/organisations) which is at 31 percent as compared to 10 percent non-payment for the entire city.
Worse still, these corporations sit on top of the priority list of uninterrupted supply - whether or not the KESC will chop off the power supply of the public sector remains to be seen, but the likelihood of non-payment remains 100 percent.
Another area of concern for KESC would be dealing with politically sensitive areas where registering the FIR usually is an uphill task because of the political connections, and suspending the supply can create riots and chaos. The memories of the latest Liaquatabad riots must be fresh in KESCs memory and the company acknowledges it will not be easy to deal with areas of such political sensitivity.
It cannot be a coincidence that these areas which sit high on theft and non-payment are also the ones with poor law and order situation, having various strong political backings. And if the company thinks that dealing with them is a tough ask, then the whole campaign may just yield nothing substantial.
It is also time for the media and political parties to realise that the KESCs problems are largely a result of criminal and un-supportive behaviour of the citizens at large, so the KESC bashing must come to an end. The onus lies on the law enforcers and the political parties to join hands with KESC in the quest to end loadshedding.
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