PTI asks Centre to end KE's 'monopoly' by bringing in another power supply company

KARACHI: The PTI's Sindh leadership, in a hard-hitting press conference on Sunday, demanded the federal government bring in another company to distribute electricity in Karachi to end K-Electric's (KE) 'monopoly'

Flanked by PTI leaders and the party's lawmakers from Sindh, Leader of the Opposition in the Sindh Assembly, Firdous Shamim Naqvi, said that Karachiites are sick of K-Electric. He said that it was high time the city was provided another system of electricity distribution.

“K-Electric does not have the capacity to take more than 600 megawatts of electricity from the national grid,” said Naqvi. He added that distribution should be given to other companies through a tender before 2023.

The scathing attack from the PTI Sindh leadership comes at a time when loadshedding has been testing the citizens' patience with several parts of the city suffering from power outages for up to 15 hours a day. 

Even though KE assured Sindh Governor Imran Ismail last month that unannounced load-shedding in the city would come to an end within 48 hours, the duration of loadshedding has increased in many parts of the city.

Several areas of the city braved eight to 12 hours of power outages on Saturday night. with most areas of the city without power in the wee hours of Saturday.

Meanwhile, the CEO of KE Moonis Alvi while talking in Geo News programme ‘Naya Pakistan' claimed that loadshedding was not taking place in the port city at the moment.

The power utility had earlier attributed that to shortage of furnace oil and had pledged that it will not last beyond Sunday.

While talking to host Shahzad Iqbal, the K-Electric CEO claimed that the power demand had dropped to 3,000MW which KE could easily generate.

“The trouble begins when the load increases beyond our generation capacity of 3,200 MW and the demand surges to 3,600 MW. There was also no loadshedding during the initial days of lockdown in the city from March 20 to May 28,” he claimed.