PESHAWAR: Minister of State for Water and Power Abid Sher Ali has accused Khyber Pakhtunkhwa ministers of siding with electricity thieves and obstructing Peshawar Electric Supply Company’s recovery drive.

Speaking at a press conference at the Pesco head office on Wednesday, Mr Ali said PTI chairman Imran Khan should pay attention to his party’s performance in power and take action against the ministers and members of the provincial assembly who supported people involved in power pilferage.

“Shah Farman (provincial minister for information) and Fazal-i-Elahi (an MPA belonging to the PTI) encourage sit-ins against Pesco’s recovery drive, causing hindrance in our efforts to reduce the utility’s losses,” he alleged.

He said Pesco could not recover Rs1.3 billion from Mr Farman’s constituency because he was protecting the defaulters. Similarly, he said, Rs367 million was recoverable from Mr Elahi’s constituency.

The state minister also presented a list containing area and feeder-wise arrears to be recovered from the constituencies of four PTI MPAs and one belonging to the Qaumi Watan Party. According to the list, Rs333m is recoverable from Ishtiaq Urmar’s constituency PK-11, Rs4.09bn from Arif Admadzai’s PK-22 and Rs147m from Khalid Khan’s PK-20.

Mr Ali urged the PTI chief to ask his MPAs to stop supporting defaulters and power thieves in their constituencies and cooperate with Pesco in its recovery drive. He said the company had suffered a loss of Rs13bn over the past six months because the province had several ‘no-go’ areas where its staff could not dare go to distribute electricity bills or take action against the defaulters.

He said that several areas around Peshawar, including Old Badaber, Matani, Hazar Khani, Pishtakhara and Landi Arbab, had become no-go areas. “If this is the situation in the provincial capital then what can we expect from other districts.”

The minister said that Imran Khan should take notice of his party-led provincial government’s poor performance on the law and order side and his ministers’ indulgence in facilitating power theft. “We are not opposed to Shah Farman making hue and cry against us … but we want him to stop creating hurdles for us by aiding the thieves in his area.”

He said he had asked the Pesco chief to write a letter to KP Chief Minister Pervez Khattak, reminding him of his obligation to end ‘no-go’ areas’ in the province. He said the company would not continue with 18 hours loadshedding a day in parts of the province with whooping losses.

Mr Ali said Pesco suffered Rs317m or 90 per cent losses a month even if it supplied electricity to areas getting power from 61 feeders six hours a day, Rs296m (80-90pc) losses from 64 feeders, Rs188m (70-80pc) from 47 feeders, Rs172m (60-70pc) from 50 feeders and Rs175m (50-60pc) from 61 feeders. He said the company was incurring monthly losses of Rs1.14bn from 283 feeders.

“We will stop electricity supply to areas where people refuse to pay bills and come under the system. In many areas people have taken connections directly from electricity polls instead of applying for the same from Pesco,” the minister said, adding that the company had removed illegally installed 147 power transfers.

He said that in Bannu people had come out with rifles after Pesco disconnected illegal connections. He regretted that the chief minister had sought time to resolve the issue, but the problem was still there. “We will stop electricity supply to Bannu after one week if the issue of illegal connections is not resolved,” the minister warned.

He recalled that the federal government had promulgated an ordinance in December last year under which causing obstruction to Wapda’s work was declared a non-bailable offence and the culprit would be liable to be punished with fine of up to Rs10 million and three-year imprisonment.

“If anybody is found creating hurdles in our effort in future, we will act against him sternly,” he warned.