PESHAWAR, Feb 28: The board of directors of the Peshawar Electricity

Supply Company has approved Rs3.876 billion budget for the company in the current fiscal year.

The board meeting was held under the chairmanship of Jamshed Savul at Wapda House here.

Pesco Chief Executive Brig Sakhi Marjan, members of the board Dr Mir Hatim, Ahmed Nawaz Mughal, Chaudhry Abdul Qadeer, Ghulam Hussain Kulachi, Chief Engineer (Operation) Mohammad Shafiq Khattak, Chief Engineer (Technical) Roshan Din, Chief Engineer (Customer Services) Iqbal Ali Shah and Board of Directors Secretary Chaudhry Riaz Hussain attended the meeting.

The secretary presented a report on minutes of 31st board meeting and after discussions the minutes were approved with minor amendments.

Mr Marjan presented the budget, which was 21 per cent more than the previous budget.

The main cause of the increase was rise in employees’ salaries and other facilities, increase in banks collection charges and millions of rupees spent on maintenance, new grid stations and installation of high power transformers.

The board approved the budget.

He said that Pesco would set up 18 new grid stations under the 6th STG programme in the next five years with the World Bank’s financial assistance, out of which five would be completed in the next financial year.