‘Inefficient’ KE grilled over long outages, overbilling

Despite overcapacity in the system and its resultant unaffordable cost to consumers, the complaints about overbilling, overcharging and extensive loadshedding, particularly in Karachi, continued to echo at the parliamentary and regulatory forums on Thursday. Notwithstanding defence from its management, K-Electric remained under severe criticism — both at a meeting of the National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Power and at a public hearing called by the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra) — for operating expensive plants, resorting to 6-18 hours loadshedding and overall poor performance. Consumer representatives from Karachi also disapproved of Nepra’s role in protecting consumer interests. The parliamentary committee meeting and the Nepra hearing on KE’s request for a 51 paise per unit increase in its fuel cost adjustment (FCA) for April took place simultaneously in the parliament house and the Nepra headquarters.