Corruption, politics behind Chitral's power crisis

By Zar Alam Khan

ISLAMABAD, Aug 27: As Chitral is facing worst ever electricity crisis, a tug of war among the politicians coupled with rampant mismanagement and inefficiency of the local power utility officials have further compounded the miseries of the consumers leaving no room for resolution of the problem.
Though small hydropower units have been set up and are working efficiently even in remote villages of the valley through monetary and technical know-how provided by the private sector, power crisis in the main town having a population of about 40,000 has deteriorated during the last a couple of years.
The local power house generates about one megawatt; 1.2 megawatts are supplied from the Reshun hydropower station in the Mastuj tehsil while about 1.5 megawatts come from the national grid against the total demand of about three megawatts. However, the consumers allege that the Pesco officials show the production of Chitral town powerhouse at 600 kw and do not give account for the electricity coming from Reshun and the national grid.
The consumers say sufficient electricity is available in the town and more can be generated with ease, but local political leaders have messed up with the issue for their own vested interests. All the political leaders including the district nazim of Jamaat-i-Islami, a provincial minister belonging to the PPP and the PML-Q MNA have played games for their own vested interests. When one leader tries to resolve the issue, others waste no time to sabotage his efforts lest he gets credit for it.
Fed up with the power breakdowns some time stretching up to over 20 hours daily, thousands of consumers led by convener Movement for Restoration of Electricity Wg Cdr (retired) Fardad Ali Shah took to the streets recently demanding transparency in utilisation of the available electricity and investigation into alleged mismanagement, corruption and misuse of authority by the Pesco officials. Members of the movement claimed that the local power station was producing over one megawatt, its maximum rated output with two turbines, but there was no record where the remaining 400 kw was being utilised.
The powerhouse has 55 employees most of whom remain absent from duty. Strangely, each employee is enjoying 600 units free electricity which they scrounge up to 4,000 units by subletting free electricity to others.
The local powerhouse has five generators which are never operated even though fuel was provided for them by the local administration. The consumers said the resident engineer of the power house had refused to operate the generators. The consumers alleged that essential parts of the generators had already been sold out by the officials.