The photo to the right shows Karachi Electric Supply Corporation (KESC) staff fixing something on the electric pole in Saddar area of Karachi in one of their daily dare devil stunts. This photo appears in the Daily Jang of March 6, 2008.
This photograph, however, is a metaphor for much more than a messed up bureaucracy. It is a reminder of the many many messes we have gotten ourselves into – from perpetual load-shedding, to flooded streets, to collapsing bridges, to much more (here, here, here, here, here, here). It is also a reminder of the most of many crises in Karachi’s civic amenities situation, which left all of Karachi in the dark because of unpaid bills.
The details, according to an AFP story, are:
A row over unpaid bills sparked a huge power blackout in Pakistan’s biggest city that left most of Karachi’s 12 million residents without electricity, officials said Thursday. The outage came after Pakistan’s main power utility accused the electricity company supplying the southern port of refusing to settle debts of more than half a billion dollars.
It affected bazaars, businesses and homes in the normally bustling economic hub and caused huge traffic jams as signals went out of order, witnesses said. “KESC (Karachi Electric Supply Co.) owes 34.8 billion rupees (548 million dollars) to us, which they have avoided paying for many months,” said Tahir Bisharat Cheema, the director general of the supply and management wing of the country’s Water and Power Development Authority (WAPDA). He said the company only repaid 250 million rupees despite weekly reminders “to which they never replied.”
“We sent them a final reminder on Wednesday and informed them that we would stop supplying electricity if the longstanding dues were not paid,” Cheema told AFP.
Karachi has a history of frequent powercuts, but they usually only affect certain districts for a few hours at a time. Many businesses have generators, but private households rarely do.“We have got a small generator for our house but it has proved highly expensive today because we don’t know when power is going to come back,” said Gulzar Ahmed, who lives in the middle class Liaquatabad neighbourhood. The city’s power company said supplies were returning to about a third of the city later Thursday but accused the national utility of failing to warn it about the shutoff. “They suddenly stopped supplying 300 megawatts to Karachi at 8am and the power supply fell to virtually zero,” KESC spokesman Sultan Hassan told AFP.
“KESC staff are making efforts to restore electricity supply but it needs WAPDA supplies resumed first” he said. Pakistan suffered major outages earlier this year — even in the normally well-supplied capital Islamabad — which authorities blamed on a lack of water for hydropower facilities.
The photograph at the beginning of this post is just a snapshop on the time continuum, and my whole information of the incident comes from this photo alone. Therefore we should not reach any conclusion on what these guys did (or did not do) to the illegal hooks (kunda) connections after this photo was taken but the oblivion of these men to illegal connections right under their noses is striking. Whether the KESC Staff finally removed these illegal connections or not (we don’t know), just the appearence of so many illegal connections makes this photo news worthy.
What we do know, however, that the power crisis in Pakistan – but especially in Karachi – keeps getting from bad to worse. We look at this picture and the mess of wires seems to say that things may well have gone beyond repair. The question is, is the electric power situation in Karachi also gone beyond repair? We hope not. And if so, then how should we repair things in Karachi on the electricity front.
ATP’s other realted Posts: What is Wrong with KESC, andher nagri, and WAPDA crises.
I am amazed at what happened in Karachi… a whole city is in darkness because KESC cannot pay its bill… but everyone here and otherwise in Pakistan seems to take this in their stride… as if it is not big deal…. what bigger deal could there be!
@Reluctant Expatriate
An excellent though …. I wish we can make it happen :S
Why did WAPDA had to wait so long to collect its dues of roughly 548 m$ from KESC, (they are not going to get it now anyways as KESC is not going to get its dues settled from its public sector customers, as such they have no money to pay WAPDA, it is vicious cycle.)The answer is simple as WAPDA itself is a corrupt organization and they were probably just sending routine recovery letters and for this purpose they were getting their palms greased under the table until somebody blew the whistle.WAPDA should have been denationalized before KESC. The Kunda system is not restricted to Karachi and prevails in all parts of Pakistan. In all poor and developing countries this system prevails.The requirement of power is exorbitant in Karachi because of its industrial base and influx of population from other parts of the country. It is the duty of the government of the day to provide electricity to its citizens, in fact electricity and water should be provided prior to start of construction and other infrastructure activity . It is regrettable that since Pakistan`s birth no government has been able to sort this problem out.
I always wonder what will be the outcome if some of the team of Pakistani investment bankers who raise venture capital of billions in New York, and hordes of Pakistani engineers who design, build, and operate power plants and electricity transmission systems in US can be combined into a strong team to address the power issues in Pakistan.
Perhaps it is wishful thinking because the road blocks put by government officials, WAPDA employees, and the likes of Mr. 10 percent would never let it happen. They will make sure that cheaters who operate air conditioners and do not pay bills are protected and are not prosecuted.
Karachi bosses who are never tired of extolling their middle class moorings ought to tell people whether middle class in their untrammeled reign has come to mean inefficiency and corruption, because the pictures posted here tell nothing else. Is it a scene of a developing nation or a birth of a monstrous culture that knows no discipline? I think it is free for all in Karachi, unchecked over population coupled with a voracious greed seem roots of the problem. Crown it with absence of any idea of quality anywhere. Commitment to people does not mean letting them make a mess of everything. Posh areas of bigwigs display a satisfying degree of order, but away from those few spots, it seems total chaos. Every day we find papers splashing pages of ads by city developers with least concern for alarmingly depleting civic amenities. Mindless “development” in fact is a powerful source of destruction. A citizen is a citizen regardless of whether he enjoys luxurious provisions or begs for bread in streets. A fine system of governance ought to mind that creating bunches of more equals will always end up in chaos for all. Looking at those hooks, “Kundas”, in such criminal abundance, one would be justified in thinking that KESC deserves a firing squad.