PESHAWAR, Aug 6: The Peshawar Electric Supply Company’s (Pesco) campaign to take on power thieves in three Khyber Pakhtunkhwa districts has failed to materialise due to lack of cooperation from police, it is learnt.

According to Pesco officials, Pesco and provincial police had agreed to jointly crack down on power thieves in Peshawar, Charsadda and Bannu but the arrangement didn’t last long as police withdrew its cooperation.

“The provincial government has backed out of its commitment, leaving our campaign high and dry in certain parts of the province,” Nauman Wazir, a Peshawar industrialist and a member of the company’s board of directors, told Dawn on Monday.

He said the Peshawar High Court had asked the provincial government to provide police and a special magistrate for Pesco raids against power thieves but the government backed out of its commitment and was responsible to protect power thieves.

“They did it to draw political mileage,” said Mr Wazir, adding power pilferage could not be controlled unless the government did not stop protecting ‘the thieves.’

Wali Mohammad, former Pesco chief executive, told Dawn in November last year that 50 to 100 policemen had been put at the Pesco disposal for conducting raids against power thieves.

Under the arrangement, Pesco staff accompanied police force on need basis while conducting raids in Peshawar, Charsadda, and Bannu. The company bore the accompanying policemen’s expenses.

However, the arrangement, said a senior Pesco official, was not effective anymore.

Shaukat Afzal, a spokesman for Pesco, when contacted, said the company called in police whenever it needed their help. “Last night we accompanied policemen after we heard that someone was stealing our transformer,” said Mr Afzal.

He, however, said the arrangement of providing ‘dedicated policemen’ was being looked into.

The senior Pesco official said the company began conducting joint raids with police in Peshawar, Charsadda, and Bannu districts because they were among the top nine districts with highest power pilferage rate. The other Khyber Pakhtunkhwa districts in this list include Lakki Marwat, Tank, Karak, Kohistan, and Battagram.

“Power theft in these nine districts is out of control in these nine districts,” said a Pesco official.

Mr Wazir said the company’s was suffering losses of Rs50 billion to Rs55 billion. “We are a corporate entity and can’t afford to provide electricity without being paid for our product,” said Mr Wazir.

The uncontrollable power pilferage, he added, was responsible for prolonged power outages in the province.

“Areas with greater power theft are experiencing longer hours of power suspension under an agreed policy,” said Mr Wazir.

He said in certain Peshawar localities Pesco’s losses stood around 80 per cent. “We can’t supply electricity to such areas at the cost of consumers of those localities where the company’s losses are around 20 per cent,” said the Pesco’s director.

According to Pesco officials, the company’s lines losses stand at a whopping 37 per cent and more than half of these losses are suffered in the nine above mentioned districts of the province.

“Pesco receives only Rs50 out of every Rs100 worth electricity it provides to consumers in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa,” said an official, adding that a hefty amount of loses were caused by a faulty system and old transmission lines.

“Losses because of power theft and non-payment of bills were the two main reasons for the Rs3 billion losses that the company is recording every month,” said the official.

Officials said Swat region and Abbottabad region of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa were the two areas where the company’s losses stood close to zero as there was no resistance to revenue collection and the incidents of power theft through Kundas was next to non-existent.