KARACHI, Jan 20: The Karachi Electric Supply Corporation has failed to remove confusion over the definition of various types of power load acquired by consumers.

Well-placed sources told Dawn on Monday that there was a lot of confusion about the definitions of various terms such as the contract load, connected load, sanctioned load and installed load. They added that the Electricity Act 1910 mentioned only connected load.

Industrial consumers point out that during load regularization campaigns KESC teams quibble over the definitions of various types of power load. The KESC teams insist that apart from connected load, other types of power load have been defined in electricity rules.

A high-ranking KESC official explained that while contract load and sanctioned load were synonymous terms they meant that load which a person had applied for at the time of construction of his house or his commercial concern.

“Conscientious consumers apply for more contract load when they purchase more electrical appliances, but a large number of consumers do not do that. As a result, they have more load than they had applied for.”

The official added that connected load and installed load were also synonymous terms which meant the power load connected to a system.

Industrial consumers point out that quite often KESC teams include those devices in the category of installed load which are lying about out of order. “A large number of consumers were surprised to find that the KESC teams insisted that the out-of-order devices be included in the list of installed load because they can be connected to the system after repairing the devices.”

They recalled that the KESC had “started some time back the controversial load regularization campaign without the prior approval of the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority”. In a judgment, the Supreme Court had said: “The petitioner had drawn a policy of load regularization dated 13-10-2000. It provided a method to regularize the loads and made demands on the respondents under Section 22 of the Act, 1910. The petitioner offered the respondents to get their unauthorized load regularized by paying the system development charges of Rs3,500 per kilowatt for excess load and where applicable security deposit at the rate of Rs500 per kilowatt and/or Rs3,000 per kilowatt for excess load.

“The respondents challenged the aforesaid policy by filing constitutional petitions before the High Court, saying that the demand was illegal and unauthorized. They also averred that under the regulation of generation, transmission and distribution of Electric Power Act (Act XL of 1997) the demand made by the petitioner requires prior approval of Nepra.

“Learned High Court by impugned judgment allowed the petitions declaring the demand made by the petitioner as without jurisdiction/authority in the absence of prior approval of tariff by Nepra under the Act of 1997.”