LESCO staff unofficially favours posh localities

[LRE]

LESCO staff unofficially favours posh localities



Saturday, July 05, 2008
By Mansoor Ahmad

LAHORE

OFFICIALS find ways to shower favors on the influential segments of society circumventing even the most transparent measures taken by the government such as the power outages schedule.

Barring some posh localities, electricity is cut off for one hour for six times a day in most localities on the directive of the federal government so that the burden of electricity shortage is shared equally. This looks a fair arrangement but it is not as simple as it looks.

Electricity should be switched off in all localities at different times after every four hours. That would ensure that the burden is shared equally by all during morning, afternoon, evening and night. However power is shut down in such a way that poor localities are without electricity three to four times from 10pm to 7am. Electricity is then shut down thrice during peak heat hours of 11 am to 6 pm.

In most of the posh localities it is ensured that the sleep of residents of the area is not disturbed during night. They are provided uninterrupted power from 10 or 11 pm until 6am in the morning. Power is then shut down between 10am to 8pm.

Majority of the residents of affluent localities have made alternate arrangement for continued electricity supply either through gas or diesel generators or through uninterrupted power supply (UPS) apparatuses by less affluent residents of same localities. In case of power shutdown, the rich segments of the society have the option to operate even air conditioners and less affluent people could switch on fans instead of air conditioners.

Even this arrangement suits them because the fans give cool air for one hour after air conditioners are switched off. These segments of the society are better equipped to deal with outages during night without much sleeping disturbance because their alternate power arrangements switch on soon after power is shut down by the LESCO.

The poorer segments of the society in contrast have no alternate arrangement once electricity is cut off for one hour. They somehow manage to tolerate the heat during the day. However, tolerating humid heat during night at this time of the season is impossible. “The entire family wakes up every time the light goes off during night,” said Fatima Ahmad, a housewife in Jahangir Town, Sanda.

She thanked God that schools and colleges were closed for two months. She said she pitied her husband who woke up twice every night because of outages. She said power should be cut off in a way that people get at least four hours of uninterrupted sleep. She said it takes about half an hour to fall asleep every time sleep is disturbed. “Disturbed sleeping pattern have lowered the tolerance level of my husband and he easily gets agitated,” she said. Another problem faced by LESCO consumers relates to lodging of complaint particularly during the night. The behavior of staff is extremely rude particularly when there is an unusual power failure and they are bombarded with complaints. They do not pick up the phone most of the time or do not give a satisfactory reply when they do. In such circumstances, phones of concerned sub-division, SDO, XEN given on the back of monthly telephone bills are switched off.

“Staff at the complaint office have no right to be rude with consumers,” said Shehla Javaid a school teacher. She said these jobs required highest level of tolerance. Majority of the staff, she said, was not hired on merit. They are confident that no one could fire them for not performing their duties honestly.

She said electricity supply a few nights ago became erratic on Allama Iqbal Road. She said none of the telephone numbers given on the back of electricity bill responded. The main complaint cell had no cue about the time when electric supply would normalise. They behaved rudely and then asked her to go to the grid station instead of bothering them. She said at 6am in the morning, she mustered the courage to again ask the main complaint office about restoration of electricity in her area. LESCO staffers said it would take another two hours however “lights were on as soon as I disconnected the phone”, she said.

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