ISLAMABAD, Nov 4: There are over 650,000 illegal electricity connections in Karachi, hooked directly into main power lines, and this is one of the main reasons behind long bouts of loadshedding in the city.

This was stated by Minister for Power Raja Pervez Ashraf in reply to a supplementary question by MQM’s Khushbakht Shujaat.

The government, Mr Ashraf said, was trying to improve the system by registering criminal cases against people stealing power.

Mr Ashraf said: “Only during the past nine months, we have registered around one million criminal cases of stealing electricity across the country.”

Recently, he said, the ministry had dismissed 43 officers found involved in electricity theft.

If the government could not handle line losses in major cities like Karachi, how could it cope with electricity theft in rural areas, Mr Kishan Chand Parwani of the PML-Q asked.

Jamshed Dasti, PPP MNA from Muzzafargarah, said that he had received several complaints of over-billing in his constituency, which Wapda transferred to small consumers to hide its own negligence.

The minister said that any discrepancy in electricity bill could immediately be corrected at a Wapda complaint cell.
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