The Ministry of Information Technology (IT) claimed on Wednesday that it is in possession of a technology that can track electricity theft.

This claim was made by an official before the Senate Standing Committee on Information Technology.

According to the official, the technology was created by Professor Dr Gul Muhammad from Peshawar's University of Engineering & Technology, who was facilitated by the Ministry of IT's Ignite programme.

Former finance minister Ishaq Dar and former information minister Ahusha Rehman had both been briefed about the technology but did not show any interest, the IT ministry officials told the senators.

According to the ministry, the technology can help eliminate 90 per cent of electricity theft in the country as it bills users using a programme similar to the one used by the Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited.

"The technology was tested in MES Peshawar and MES Rawalpindi and 35pc electricity theft was curtailed within a year," members of the ministry told the committee, adding that the technology is better than smart meters and smart grids.

Ministry officials said the new government should hand over the implementation of the technology to the Ministry of Energy to achieve optimum results.

Members of the IT ministry also claimed that a Chinese company was interested in investing $46 million in the project, but the deal fell through as no meeting of the Public Private Partnership Board was held in the past two years.

"The previous government did not seem interested in the technology," the IT ministry officials said.

Members of the standing committee were intrigued by the claims made and asked that a detailed briefing on the technology be given to them in the next meeting.

Ignite has issued a statement on the above report. Read it here.