PESHAWAR: The Peshawar Electric Supply Company on Monday claimed improvement in the recovery of dues from domestic consumers, and reduction in its line losses.

Pesco chief executive officer Dr Amjad Khan told reporters at the Wapda House here that the company’s line losses had reduced through the collection of Rs500-Rs600 million every month since Dec 2018 when a crackdown on power theft was launched.

He said the billing receivables had improved from 80 per cent to 97 per cent during the ongoing campaign against power theft and line losses.

Dr Amjad said the company would soon achieve the target of 100 per cent bill recovery.

He said the ministry of energy had claimed in a report that Rs48 billion or 32.6 per cent of the nationwide Rs213 billion line losses were reported in the areas covered by Pesco.

Company CEO says drive against power theft to be extended to other areas

The Pesco chief said the issues pertaining to line losses and dues recovery had been there for many years. He said the Rs4 billion monthly losses meant Rs48 billion annual losses.

The Pesco chief said the anti-power theft campaign was launched in areas with above 80 per cent line losses, where better dues recovery had reduced the duration of power cuts from 17 hours to four hours daily.

He said the campaign would be extended to other areas after good results were reported in six districts of the province.

Accompanied by Pesco general manager (operation) Sher Abbas Khan and director general (public relations) Shaukat Afzal, Dr Amjad said the recovered amount would be utilised on setting up new grid stations, laying 11KV transmission line, and procuring new materials in the province.

He praised MNAs, MPAs and members of local bodies for supporting Pesco in anti-power theft in their respective constituencies.

The Pesco chief said the anti-power theft campaign was across-the-board and anyone official found involved in theft would be dealt with strictly.

He said the company had sacked 15 officers of BPS-17 and one of BPS-18 during the last few months for involvement in corruption.

Dr Amjad said during the campaign, the company had recommended registration of 11,000 FIRs against people of the province for power theft but the police registered only 3,000 FIRs.

He said the government had approved Rs20 billion funds to be used for setting up 38 new grid stations.

The Pesco chief said more than 352 electricity feeders mostly industrial were exempted from loadshedding, where the recovery rate was around 95 per cent and line losses five per cent.

He said domestic consumers had to pay Rs80 billion dues and industrial ones Rs4 billion.

Dr Amjad said of the total 1,056 electricity feeders, the company had above 80 per cent line losses on around 105 feeders due to power theft, whereas the recovery was only five to 10 per cent there.

He said the company had planned to establish 11 new workshops for repairing electricity transformers.

The Pesco chief said 12 feeders had been exempted from power cuts, where the people had got meters installed and had begun paying bills.

He said the company had formed committees of senior officials for the speedy resolution of disputes on inflated bills.

Published in Dawn, February 26th, 2019