PESHAWAR, Dec 1: Water and Power Development Authority (Wapda) is suffering a loss of Rs50 million every month in one tribal territory only, senior Wapda officials said at a press conference here on Saturday.

Peshawar Electricity Supply Company (Pesco) superintendent engineer Hassam-ur-Rehman said Wapda had resorted to what he called loadmanagement in some suburbs of the city to overcome its monthly loss of Rs50 million it was suffering in the Sheikh Mohammadi circle (including the Bahber tribal territory on the outskirts of the city) only due to electricity theft and non-payment of bills by the consumers.

Pesco officials — federally-administered tribal areas superintendent engineer Nasir Ali Bangash, Khyber SE Rana Anwar and operations director Mohammad Shafiq — told the press conference that Wapda had not resorted to loadshedding rather it was loadmanagement to offset the losses the authority was suffering due to electricity theft.

However, in line with the instructions of Wapda high-ups, they added, Pesco had taken extra care that there should no loadmanagement at Iftar and Sehri timings.

They said Wapda was suffering huge financial losses in Fata because domestic consumers were not paying their electricity bills and a large number of owners of marble factories and other commercial enterprises had installed electricity connections illegally.