September 6, 2003	Saturday	Rajab 8, 1424

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ISLAMABAD, Sept 5: About 600 officials of Islamabad Electricity Supply Company (Iesco) were terminated on corruption charges during last three years. This was stated by the chief executive of the company, Brig Wasim Zafar Iqbal, in a statement, on Friday.

He said the terminated employees having grade 1 to 18 were found involved in power theft and other malpractices.

He said besides termination of 600 employees, the Iesco had recruited over 5,000 new employees to fill vacant posts and improve the output of the company.

“With the expulsion of corrupt employees, the graph of rampant corruption has drastically declined.” “Under a new strategy adopted by the Iesco, people can register their complaints against any official of the company” he said.

He said the company would spend Rs20 million on exploring ways and means to provide cheaper electricity to the consumers. The demand of electricity was increasing by 8 per cent.

Talking about alleged malpractices of meter readers, he said if a meter reader did not take reading continuously for three months, his services are liable to be terminated.

The Iesco chief said people could not be forced to pay the inflated bills, which did not match their actual consumption. In this connection customer service units were directed to correct wrong bills without any question, he said.

A crisis management cell, he said, had been working round-the-clock to cope with any calamity (power outage), he said.

Brig Zafar said the company had met an international standards of line losses by brining down the rate of line losses from 12.5 per cent to 10.9 per cent. He claimed that the rate was lowest in the region.

“Four years ago, when army took over Wapda, the rate of line losses was 42 per cent and by hard work and judicious management it has now been brought down to 25 per cent,” he said.

He said the Iesco’s revenue had increased from Rs11 billion to Rs23 billion in the last fiscal year. The revenue target of Rs24 billion has been set for the current year.

The Iesco chief executive said the company had asked Nepra for two-pronged tariff system to provide relief to the consumers.