Loss-making DISCOs struggle to avoid privatisation.

KARACHI -- The two struggling and loss-making power distribution companies (DISCOs) of Sindh are girding up their loins to avoid the sword of privatisation as the caretaker government seems adamant to outsource all such non-remunerative public organisations.

Recently, a team of World Bank officials met caretaker Federal Minister for Privatisation Fawad Hasan Fawad in Islamabad to discuss the government's privatisation policy with specific focus on DISCOs.

Except for the Karachi Division, the two public power DISCOs in Sindh - Hyderabad Electric Supply Company (Hesco) and Sukkur Electric Power Company (Sepco) - provide services in 23 districts where officials and unionists have been complaining because of an acute shortage of staff and proper equipment to run the utilities.

At the same time, they are being pressurised to ensure 100% bill recovery and eradicate decades-old problem of power theft.

Veteran labour leader and All Pakistan Wapda Hydroelectric Workers Union Central General Secretary Khurshid Ahmed, while talking to The Express Tribune over phone from Lahore, said that the government is acting on diktat of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and planning to privatise companies, which will multiply problems of masses as outsourcing of unprofitable organisations is not a suitable solution to such and other issues.

Read Defaulters owe DISCOs over Rs2tr

He said that Wapda used to work efficiently but the government formed DISCOs and inked agreements with independent power producers (IPPs) on the basis of ill-advised policies.

'Today, both staff of the companies and customers are paying the price of wrong strategies, which are scaling up power tariff and compelling customers to steal electricity to avoid high tariffs.

'What's more, no appointments have been made for the last six years while every DISCO is facing a shortage of technical staff. Honest and laborious staff must be encouraged and black sheep should be punished to run organisations smoothly,' he said.

Hesco spokesperson Sadiq Kubar said that the government did...