Islamabad
BUREAU REPORT
NEPRA has come down hard on K-Electric for its worsening performance and failure to provide a stable electricity supply to Karachi. In a strongly worded letter, NEPRA’s Additional Director General Iftikhar Ali Khan highlighted the growing number of public complaints and slammed the utility for its inability to meet basic service expectations.
Many areas of Karachi are now facing brutal power outages that last more than 12 hours a day. Each spell can stretch up to three hours, adding to the suffering of citizens during the ongoing heatwave. The impact has been severe—law and order are deteriorating, businesses are taking a hit, and public frustration is boiling over.
Despite repeated promises, K-Electric has failed to fix its poor operations. Key indicators like transmission and distribution (T&D) losses, recovery rates, and the number of load-shedding-free zones have all taken a turn for the worse. Even the areas that were earlier declared free of load shedding have dropped from 76% to 70%. Shockingly, this puts K-Electric behind many public-sector distribution companies (DISCOs), even though it is a privatized entity meant to perform better.
One of the main reasons K-Electric was privatized was to bring in efficiency and end power cuts. But what’s happening now is just the opposite. NEPRA has raised serious doubts about the company’s ability and intent to fulfill its basic duties.
Adding to the mess is K-Electric’s growing reliance on cheap electricity from the National Transmission and Despatch Company (NTDC), which can supply up to 1600 MW. Even with this cheaper option available, K-Electric continues to impose long power cuts. It is not using the full NTDC capacity, and that decision is hard to justify, especially when the public is already suffering.
NEPRA also criticized K-Electric for running several of its own power plants at partial loads, even while people are sitting in the dark. This practice not only wastes fuel but also increases generation costs. To make things worse, these extra costs are being passed on to consumers, punishing them for the company’s inefficiencies.
The regulator made it clear that managing T&D losses and improving bill recovery are already part of K-Electric’s allowed revenue. Shutting down feeders to recover dues or reduce losses is both unethical and illegal. NEPRA said this tactic unfairly targets those who regularly pay their bills and damages public trust.
NEPRA also reminded that it had previously penalized K-Electric and other DISCOs for similar issues, yet the utility continues to ignore its core problems and instead keeps asking for regulatory leniency.
In response to this latest crisis, NEPRA has ordered K-Electric to take immediate action: stop unjustified load shedding, cut down T&D losses, and boost recovery efforts. Without these steps, public confidence will keep falling, and regulatory standards will continue to be violated.
Even though the Fuel Charges Adjustment (FCA) has been negative for months—leading to lower bills—K-Electric still blames high tariffs for theft and non-payment. NEPRA flatly rejected this excuse as baseless.
In the end, NEPRA has warned K-Electric to stop passing the blame and start delivering what it promised as a privatized power company. For now, Karachi’s residents are the ones paying the price for this failure.
