LAHORE: The Punjab government has notified a provincial level task force and district enforcement committees to supervise massive operations it is launching against electricity theft all over the province.

Industrial, commercial and high-end domestic consumers will be targeted in the first instance, and common domestic and agriculture in the second.

According to the notification, the provincial level Chief Minister’s Task Force is headed by the energy secretary and comprises secretary industries, all divisional commissioners, additional IGP (Operations) Punjab, and CEOs of Lesco, Fesco, Gepco and Mepco.

District committees will set up theft reporting cell at DC office

The task force will launch, conduct and supervise focused and sustained operations against electricity theft throughout the province. It will target industries, commercial and high-end domestic culprits involved in electricity theft in the first phase and domestic and agriculture sector power thieves in the second.

Each district committee is headed by the deputy commissioner, CPO/DPO, superintendent engineer of the Disco concerned, and a representative of the special branch.

This committee will establish an electricity theft reporting cell in the deputy commissioner’s office with dedicated telephone lines so as to receive information about the power thieves.

The superintendent engineer of the Disco concerned will brief the district committee and share with it data about each feeder along with losses and details about industrial/commercial connections before launch of the operation.

Enforcement teams comprising local administration, police and the EXEN concerned will ensure combing of industrial and commercial connections especially targeting high loss feeders.

Where electricity theft is detected, FIRs will be registered against the culprits under the relevant laws.

Equipment will be removed at the site of the electricity theft and the EXEN concerned will ensure that the electricity supply is not resumed at that site illegally.

Police will complete investigation into the FIR registered by the enforcement team within 14 days and submit a copy of the challan/report to the district committee.

Where departmental collusion is identified during the investigation, the same will be reported to the district committee.

The district committee shall forward daily progress report to the head of the provincial task force and forward it to the Pepco managing director for presentation to the ministry of energy and power division.

The head of the provincial task force will contact head of each district committee daily on telephone to review progress.

The minister for power and secretary [power] will meet the provincial task force once in a month to review progress.

The provincial government will launch a public awareness campaign on the electricity theft through print and electronic media before the launch of the operations.

Published in Dawn, October 19th, 2018