LAHORE: The police have registered 928 first information reports (FIRs), of 1,503 complaints by field formations of the Lahore Electric Supply Company (Lesco), against power thieves in Lahore, Kasur, Okara, Nankana Sahib and Sheikhupura districts in a crackdown on power pilferage, say official sources.

Officials say though the ratio of FIRs registration has improved, it still requires improvement through changing behavior of police officials towards power theft.

“There was a time when the police would register only 50 or so FIRs, of 1,500 complaints,” the official said. “For the last couple of months, the percentage has considerably improved as the registration of 928 FIRs, of 1,503 Lesco complaints, from September 1 to November 25 is a big achievement.”

“The inspector general of police and other senior police officials are cooperating with us for registration of cases against electricity thieves. However, we will request them to also ensure registration of the remaining FIRs,” he added.

According to a report compiled by Lesco for September 1 to November 25, field teams checked 2,391 electricity connections - 2,177 domestic, 99 commercial and 26 industrial. The company moved 1,503 applications to the police for registration of FIRs. So far, 928 were entertained.

“Lesco’s respective field formations charged power thieves over 14.884 million units amounting to over Rs216 million. The company recovered over Rs100 million from them”, reads the report.

Lesco’s top management earlier in December last approached the Punjab chief secretary for deployment of a dedicated police force to stop power theft and to protect its field staff from attacks from electricity thieves and defaulters. The request was made after Lesco officials faced resistance from influential groups. In the same month (December 2017) several people were injured in a clash at the courtroom on the issue of serving detection bill to a lawyer at Kot Radha Kishan (Kasur). Since no action was taken on the request, Lesco changed its plan in August this year and sought to have its own police stations to stop power theft and increase recovery from the defaulters in ‘hard areas’. The company in this regard sent a legal draft-cum-proposal to the Ministry of Energy (Power Division).

“If Pakistan Railways can have independent police under command of an IG to deal with around one million passengers or so daily in terms of security or assisting the staff in capturing the free riders, why Lesco which deals with around 4.4 million consumers, cannot have independent police stations to capture a number of power thieves and recover dues from the defaulters,” said an official while quoting content of the draft sent to ministry in August.

Published in Dawn, November 27th, 2018