HYDERABAD, Dec 5: Federal Minister for Water and Power Liaquat Ali Khan Jatoi has directed the Hyderabad Electric Supply Company to be careful in issuing detection bills to consumers. He was presiding over a meeting of officials of the company here on Monday.

The minister said that no wrong detection bill or inflated bill should be issued to the consumers.

He said vigilance teams should try to catch power thieves and make all efforts to recover dues from defaulters.

Mr Jatoi said it was necessary to make the company stand on its own two feet financially.

The Chief Executive Officer of the Hesco, Maqbool Ahmed Khwaja, said that two regional and five circle vigilance committees were constituted which had recovered Rs16.39 million from the defaulters.

He said 1,700 more illegal connections were regularized in addition to 29,208 connections.

Mr Khwaja said that 31,670 new connections were given against the target of 16,872 during the current year.

He informed the minister that electrification of 552 villages was completed at a cost of Rs282.48 million.

Mr Jatoi appreciated the efforts of the head of the Hyderabad vigilance committee, Mohammad Moosa Mirbahar, and the vigilance committee of the Larkana circle.

He gave a reward of Rs5,000 and a commendatory certificate to ASI Roshan Ali Sahar for defusing a bomb planted on the 500kv transmission line near Radhan on August 13.