October 9, 2003	Thursday	Sha’aban 12, 1424

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SUKKUR, Oct 8: A partial strike was observed and protest demonstrations were held in Sukkur, Shikarpur, Jacobabad and other parts of upper Sindh on Wednesday against Hesco and the killing of Maulana Azam Tariq.

The strike was observed on the joint call of the All Pakistan Organization of Small Traders and Cottage Industries and the Millat-i-Islamia.

In Sukkur, a procession, led by the co-chairman of the traders’ organization, Haji Mohammad Haroon Memon, was taken out which passing through different parts of the city ended at the district Nazim office.

Speaking on the occasion, Mr Haroon said that Hesco was busy in issuing unjustified detection bills and resorting to unannounced loadshedding.

He warned that if the practices continued, the commercial consumers would not pay electricity bills.

Meanwhile, Hesco chief Tariq Arshad rushed to Sukkur and spoke at a press conference there.

He termed the strike unjustified and claimed that only a few bazaars of Sukkur and other parts of Sindh remained closed whereas most of the main markets were found open.

He said that the traders were using the people to achieve their own interests.

He said that those who indulged in power theft would definitely be served with detection bills.

However, he said that they were ready to review unjustified detection bills.

Later, speaking at another press conference at the office of the superintendent engineer, Operations, he said that an “effective strategy” had been launched by his company to curtail the line losses which had gone up over 41 per cent in the region.

According to him this was the highest figure in comparison to other electricity supplying organizations of Wapda in the country.

He said that most of the electricity thefts/line losses were recorded in the rural areas where the company had undergone a massive programme of electrification during the last three years under the Tameer-i-Pakistan and Khushhal Pakistan programmes.

He said that the industrial sector’s performance in this regard was far better and there were rare theft cases of electricity in the industrial estates of Sindh.

He called for a national awakening to check thefts/leakages and other illegal practices in the electricity supply in order to enable the organization to run smoothly.

The chief executive of Hesco said that extreme care was taken before issuing detection bills in case of power thefts, and added that if any wrong case was referred to him regarding detections, he would not hesitate to apologize and to waive the detection bill completely.

He told newsmen that the lowest line loss was recorded in Fesco which was 9.3 per cent.

He assured that Hesco would go for minimizing line losses in the current financial year.

Regarding electricity arrears of different departments, the Hesco chief said that Rs1.5 billion remained outstanding against Sindh Government departments, while there were no arrears against federally-controlled departments.