PESHAWAR, Dec 10: The Peshawar Electricity Supply Company (Pesco) would involve councillors to keep a check on power theft and to improve monthly collection of electricity dues by persuading the people in their constituencies, informed sources told Dawn here on Monday.

“There is a need to induce a culture of payment of utility bills and for this purpose councillors could be very effective,” said a senior Pesco official.

Though Pesco had brought down line losses from staggering 42 per cent to 22 per cent (including 12 to 16 per cent technical line losses) since the army-led management took over the distribution company, something more was needed to be done to bring down line losses further, said the sources.

The sources said there were some five ‘grey areas’ in the provincial capital where Pesco was facing losses due to the non-payment of monthly electricity bills and largescale power theft by the consumers.

The Landi Arbab circle, said the sources, was suffering losses up to 96 per cent of the total cost of electricity supplied to the area under its jurisdiction. Similarly, the Sheikh Mohammadi circle was suffering losses up to Rs50 million per month due to non-payment of electricity bills and illegal connections.

The Pesco staff had been facing law and order situation on several occasions in the past whenever people of these rural areas of the provincial capital were pushed to pay their electricity bills, the sources said. Even the police appeared to be ineffective whenever their help were sought.

“Councillors would be involved to make the people of their constituencies pay electricity tariff and overcome power theft, they should not only help their people to get their genuine problems viz-a-viz power utility solved, they are also needed to persuade them to go by the law,” said Brig Khalid, the chief executive Pesco, when contacted.

According to official sources, a vast majority of Pesco’s consumers is consisted of domestic consumers.

They totalled 86 per cent of the over 1.85 million consumers Pesco has in the NWFP and the adjoining Federally Administered Tribal Areas.

Domestic consumers used up to 50 units of electricity every month, forming 28 per cent of the total number of consumers Pesco has, those consuming 51 units to 100 units form 24 per cent of the total number of consumers, whereas those consuming 101 to 300 units every month form 34.2 per cent of the 1.85 million consumers.

The Pesco chief said councillors were being involved to improve the situation in general.

“Though there is no shortage of electricity or incapacity on the part of power distribution system, this is the non-cooperative   attitude of the power consumers that causes breakdown of the system in some pockets of the rural areas,” said the Pesco chief.

Referring to the power breakdowns in some rural parts of the provincial capital recently, Pesco officials attributed the same to overloading of the system as a result of illegal connections obtained directly from the distribution lines.

Besides, the consumers habit of not disclosing the exact electricity consumption requirements to the authorities has also been described as another major reason that causes tripping  of the distribution system due to overloading.