SUKKUR, July 2: Electricity consumers in Sukkur, Old Sukkur, Rohri, Pannu Aquil, Ghotki, Mirpur Mathelo, Khairpur, Shikarpur, Jacobabad, Kandhkot-Kashmore and other towns complain that they are being overcharged by the Sukkur Electric Supply Company (Sepco).

According to the consumers, Sepco officials have been issuing bills for excessive number of electricity units used and their meter readers have been marking higher number of units during monthly inspections. They say those with legal connections are the worst sufferers since they also seem to pay for illegal connections acquired with connivance of the Sepco staff.

They say that they were overcharged for the month of June and allege that the Sepco officials are doing so to cover the target of line losses earmarked by the company’s higher authorities.

Consumers from Sukkur I and II, Old Sukkur, Bunder Road, Site, Rohri and other areas said that they approached the offices of sub-divisional officers, Sepco’s executive engineers and revenue officers in their areas. But most of the officers were not available and those who were asked them to first to pay the current bill, saying that the rest of the amount would be adjusted in the next month’s bill.

They said that with no response from Sepco officials, they were forced to approach offices of the federal ombudsman, electricity inspector in the Sukkur region for the Sindh government, regional customer services centre and also the office of Sepco’s chief executive officer to lodge their complaints for resolving their problems of excessive billing and detection of unjustified electricity units.

Affected consumers including Hyder Ali, Muhammad Ismail, Muhammad Asif, Muhammad Ahmed Arain, Imran Ali and Muhammad Mehboob, all residents of different areas in Sukkur, while talking to the media said that despite long hours of power outages on the pretext of developing faults in supply lines, burning of transformers’ links, frequent tripping in electricity supply, there has been no effect in the number of units charged and on top of that the billing amount had been increasing every month.

Scores of traders and residents residing in different sub-divisions told Dawn that they paid from Rs500 to Rs2,000 a month to meter readers to ensure that they marked the actual number of units used and not more. However, they said, in May and June, they were still charged for between 300 and 1,000 extra units on their bills with a promise that the amount would be adjusted in the bill of July, which is the first month of the new financial year. The consumers said that they were asked to pay their bills because of mounting pressure from higher Sepco officers to achieve the recovery target.

Sources in Sepco told Dawn that a recovery campaign had been launched four months ago on the directives of the federal government for getting back billions of rupees pending with defaulting consumers. They said that a few Sepco officials to try to show a ‘better performance’ issued bills for 100 to 200 excessive units to consumers whose connections had been disconnected or their houses and offices were closed.

Sources said that ‘active’ Sepco line staff also cooperated to save the ‘efficient’ Sepco officials. Moreover, power connections which had been cut by NAB were also restored by Sepco officials, they said. Now, the NAB deputy director has dent a detailed report in this regard to the NAB director general, they added.

Meanwhile, Sepco’s public relations officer while talking to Dawn admitted that the complaints of consumers were true. He also confirmed that Sepco officials including meter readers and supervisers, line superintendents and other staff were also involved in excess billing.

He said that the Sepco chief Noor Ahmed Dayo had taken serious notice of the matter and had called a meeting of the all linemen, line superintendents and meter readers and supervisors with their sub-divisional officers on Wednesday morning.

The official assured that action would be taken against officials responsible for wrong and excessive billing, adding that whenever disciplinary action was initiated against line staff they resorted to political influence to get them out of it.