KARACHI CHRONICLE: What is KESC's game plan?

While the stand off between Karachi Electric Supply Company (KESC) and the labour union continues, the consumers suffer power cuts, loadshedding, complete blackouts lasting days on end and inflated bills, all of which is killing the economy of the city and the country in no small measure. The federal and provincial governments however, are handling the crisis in the same manner that America handles Israel - with kid gloves, mild raps on the knuckles while the problems Israel generates continue unabated.
Is the helplessness of the government like that of the USA in the case of Israel? It seems suspiciously so. The KESC seems to have some sort of blackmailing hold on the government; it is alleged that one very important government figure is a sleeping partner in the KESC, that he had hoped to gain from the privatisation but things have soured and now he wants out, that is, to create a situation where the public vociferously demands the KESC be returned to the public sector.
That means a resale of the company. It also means that the present investors will get their money back while the public will be burdened with another heavy bag of debt to the translated into another oppressive tax. However, this will not ease the power crisis in Karachi. The privatisation was a solution to the crisis, so how can reverting the KESC to public sector resolve the crisis? Nevertheless we want to be rid of the present stakeholder.
Demands for reverting the KESC to public sector are boiling, as planned, but there is another demand to which the government is not giving any thought. The public is demanding alternate energy sources for the city to decrease dependence on expensive thermal or fuel generated power, as well as hydro electricity.
The government however does not consider wind and solar sources of power generation because it will not profit from it both financially and politically as it does from keeping the country dependent on hydro and thermal power sources. It will not be able to make a song and dance about the shortage of water and the need for more dams (the ghost of Kalabagh dam has not been exorcised yet), nor be able to use the rising price of oil and the growing shortage of gas to raise more taxes, to beg for more foreign aid, to justify federal and army control of Balochistan, (the chief source of gas), to pretend to be poor and needy.
Anybody in government, whether it is a military dispensation or a civilian one is beside the point, is not poor or needy. The woes of the real poor and needy is never addressed except in token projects that do not alleviate the suffering of the common man. The working class suffers because there are few job openings. This is the reason the KESC labour union is fighting tooth and nail for the re-induction of 4,500 sacked workers, for there are not other job openings.
Ask anyone in the city who is not in government or KESC or filthy rich whether it is the labour union or the KESC that is the villain in the power crisis. Fingers are pointed exclusively at the KESC management. It is amazing that despite the public opinion the KESC pretends it is the victim while the union is the villain. If you ring the complaint department of the KESC you will be greeted by a continual recorded message that consumers should bare up with the power crisis which exists because of the protest of the labour union.
The message asks for the consumer's co-operation. Sorry. There is not one of us who is on the side of the KESC. We may not like the tactics of the labour union but we do not hold them responsible for our woes.
Primarily, how can the labour union be blamed for the rising electricity tariff? Households pay almost the same rate as industry: Rs 7 per KWH for residents and Rs 7.2 for industry. Because of lowering subsidy it is said that there is a suggestion to raise the consumer tariff two percent every month in the next fiscal year. Can the labour union be blamed for rising tariff which, along with short supply of electricity, for this and that reason, are the two sources of consumer woes.
The KESC has no intention of resolving the stand off. Even when for political reasons it is forced to come to the negotiating table, it does not budge an inch and every meeting between it and the union ends in a stalemate. The government alone is sympathetic towards the KESC and issues toothless warnings and statements to the power company which calls the warning meddling and continues to coerce both the union and the consumers at will.
The labour union is not a saint, of course, but it is painted black with blatant lies by the KESC. In a recent case they claimed SITE transmitters could not be repaired because the union kidnapped 40 workers who had gone to repair the faults. The union claimed it had not kidnapped the workers and as proof it said the families of workers would have lodged FIRs with the police but not one family of the forty did so. This means it was a fake case of the KESC.
Recently the KESC rendered all unions registered with the NIRC defunct, thus withdrawing all entitlement of the Chief Bargaining Agent to negotiate with the KESC. What is this if not a deliberate attempt to keep the power crisis simmering? Bangladesh has taken measures to reduce dependence on hydro power by providing common man with subsidised solar panels which they can pay in instalments. Millions of homes have benefited. Why cannot Karachi have the same facility?
We can also go for wind power. Whatever alternate renewable source of energy we use, its prime effect will be to break the KESC's monopoly. It is monopoly which is allowing KESC to play its dastardly game. Break the monopoly and the company will be singing a different tune. Take the example of the telephone company. Remember the time it was lord of the communication system and how it made the consumer suffer. Once people switched on mass to cell phones the PTCL began to bend backward to woo the consumer. Gone was the arrogance. Introduced alternate source of energy and watch the KESC bubble burst. I guarantee it.