PESHAWAR: All Pakistan Wapda Hydro Electric Workers Union has demanded of the government to merge all the power distribution companies (Discos) into Wapda and fill the vacant posts to overcome power theft and financial crisis.

The demand was raised by the union’s provincial chairman Mohammad Iqbal while speaking at Pesco Shuhada conference in Iqbal Labour Complex here on Thursday.

Other leaders of the union, including provincial general secretary Noorul Amin, deputy secretary Younus Shah, senior vice-chairman Naseerullah, Mohammad Hussain and Nasir Khan also talked about the problems being faced by the workers, according to a press release.

The union’s provincial chief said that most of the complaint offices in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa had been closed due to shortage of staff and as a result the consumers were facing problems.

He said that due to shortage of employees the existing staff was overburdened and thus many of them had sustained serious burn injuries during work.

Mr Iqbal asked the employees to avoid starting work on the transmission lines without permit to work to ensure personal safety.

He said that problems had been increased for the employees with the creation of different power distribution companies and urged the government to merge all these companies into Wapda to overcome financial crisis, power theft and line losses.

He called for filing all the vacant posts to ensure better service delivery.

Published in Dawn, January 25th, 2019