Karachi: KESC sets up ‘Umeed Zone’ to increase recovery in DHA, clifton

[Naveed Yaseen]

The Karachi Electric Supply Company has initiated steps to maximise its revenue earnings by setting up “Umeed Zone” for increasing billing recovery and revenue earning from dwellers and businesspeople in DHA and Clifton, The News has learnt.

The privatised management of the KESC in its internal job posting circular dated January 5, 2009, has said that one of the prime objectives of the Umeed Zone is to improve the quality of service to customers through quick and effective responses to requests and complaints, and gain a high-level of acceptance and approval of the KESC performance by customers in the zone.

The management official who is going to head the “Umeed Zone” is required to assure that revenue produced each month from the current sales and collections within the zone exceed the total operating costs (i.e. power delivered, payroll, transportation, and other operating expenses) by the percentage specified in the annual operating budget.

For the purpose of setting up the “Umeed Zone” there is more emphasis on bill production and delivery on schedule and the utilisation of manpower to maximise the number of delinquent disconnections carried out each month and to ensure that reconnections are performed in accordance with the standards.

It should be mentioned here that a majority of the KESC consumers in the newly established Umeed Zone have already been seriously dissatisfied with the performance of the privatised power utility in terms of uninterrupted and smooth electric supply and related billing services. There have been numerous complaints of long spells of load shedding, power cuts, over-billing, and instances of faulty electricity metres.

It was also learnt that a receivable department has been set up in the power utility with the appointment of a deputy chief financial officer in order to streamline and regulate the affairs of defaulting power consumers whose electricity connections could be disconnected any time.

KESC Shareholders Association General-Secretary Choudhry Mazhar said however, that by and large, the unreasonably high salaries drawn by some 54 senior executives of the company had been causing serious discontent and concern among the middle and low cadres of the KESC employees whose salaries had not been raised in recent years in accordance with the market trends.

He also criticised a recent policy decision of the KESC management of not sending officials to overseas countries to physically inspect the material and equipment being procured for the privatised power utility. The suspension of these inspection missions would raise the chances of procuring defective material and equipment by the KESC further affecting its electric supply services for its large consumer-base, Mazhar said.

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