6, April 2005	Wednesday	26 Safar 1426

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PESHAWAR, April 5: The Peshawar Electricity Supply Company expressed concern over cut in its budget by Nepra in the 27th meeting of its board of directors held here on Tuesday, said a press release. The board also expressed concern over the losses it was facing, and sought help of the minister of state for water and power for the recovery of arrears from the Shabqadar areas and Bannu circle to reduce losses.

The meeting discussed progress and problems faced by the company during the July-February period. The chief executive Pesco Brigadier Tahir Saeeed Malik told the board that Nepra had given the target to reduce its line losses, and added that the company had been able to reduce a distribution losses by five per cent and transmission losses by 18 per cent by the end of February, this year.

Under the recovery head, the BoD was informed that Pesco had recovered half of the arrears outstanding against federal and provincial governments which amounts to Rs1,200 million, the Pesco officials said.

The meeting was told that a massive disconnection campaign was launched for the purpose. The sale of the electricity units has been recorded 3,752 million units as compared to 3,572 million units last year. The company has recovered Rs500 million out of Rs 827 million arrears stuck up in litigation while Rs3520 million are outstanding against de facto Shabqadar areas, the board was informed.

The Pesco chief talking about the losses the company faced during last eight months said that 1,104 transformers were damaged due to overloading and torrential rains while 19 transformers were stolen in different areas. In the same period, 47,566 new connections were provided to the consumers in the province raising the total connections to about 2,100,000. In order to facilitate the consumers applying for new connections marketing cell has been established which had provided connections to 204 consumers out of 360 applicants.

It was regretted that 11 employees of Pesco lost their lives while performing duty and 10 employees received injuries in different mishaps, Pesco spokesman said.

The BoD also informed that work on 2,323 developmental works costing Rs658 million were completed in the last eight months whereas Rs790 million would be spent on 2,056 developmental schemes to be completed by June 2005.

In past two months, 11 new grid stations have been added to the network of Pesco while grid stations at Madyan in Swat district has been inaugurated last week. Pesco officials informed the meeting that 15 to 20 power transformers at various grid stations in the province are overloaded whereas certain transmission lines are also overloaded creating problems for the electric system to function smoothly in summer season.