LAHORE: The Lahore Electric Supply Company (Lesco) on Friday suspended its three officers from service for taking bribes from consumers for rectifying inflated bills.

The company had received complaints about its Baghbanpura (Lahore) division.

“It is very ridiculous that the consumers, who are already under severe financial stress due to inflated bills having massive fuel price adjustment charges, general sales tax etc, are being forced to pay bribe for correction of bills. The government must take strict notice of the situation,” a consumer said while talking to Dawn.

According to a Lesco spokesperson, Chief Executive Officer Chaudhry Muhammad Amin suspended EXEN (Baghbanpura) Rab Yar, Revenue Officer Abdul Jabbar and Commercial Assistant Muhammad Imran from service.

Consumers had complained against officers, including an EXEN

“We will not allow anyone to use correction of bills for the vested interests,” the Lesco chief said in a statement.

“In case any issue, the consumers must report to us,” he added.

Speaking at a news conference, Mr Amin said the bills of those domestic consumers who had consumed up to 200 units were being corrected by deleting the FPA charges.

He added that the tube-well consumers’ bills were also being corrected in the same way.

“We have directed all banks to receive all manually corrected bills,” he said, adding that those who had already deposited their bills would be reimbursed the FPA charges/amounts.

“Moreover, we have also extended the last date of depositing such corrected bills up to Aug 31”.

While talking to Dawn, the Lesco chief said the 2.1m such consumers had been issued revised bills after the required correction.

“The correction of bills of around 1.5m remaining consumers (in six batches) is underway at the moment and it will be done soon,” he maintained.

Meanwhile, the protests against inflated bills continued in Lahore and other cities.

In Lahore, the rickshaw union and other groups, representing workers, also organised protest demonstrations on Friday. A number of rickshaw drivers, under the aegis of the Awami Rickshaw Union, gathered outside the Lahore Press Club and chanted slogans against the government for fleecing the poor consumers on the pretext of the FPA and other taxes imposed through electricity bills.

They also complained against the repeated challans of their rickshaws by the Lahore Transport Company (LTC) for minor violations. They warned the government of holding a sit-in at Charing Cross if the FPA, GST etc were not withdrawn from the bills.

“We also ask the government to stop the LTC from issuing challans,” one of the protesters said.

Similar protests were also reported from other parts of the province. They, during protests, also burnt the bills reportedly.

RUDA: Balloting of hundreds of plots of Chahar Bagh, a residential project of Ravi Urban Development Authority (RUDA), took place at the authority’s head office in Garden Town.

According to a spokesman, the chief guest of the ceremony was Federation of Chambers of Commerce Vice President Nadeem Qureshi. He said the participants in person and online participated in the balloting. The list of the successful candidates was also posted on the website by the authority administration.

Published in Dawn, August 27th, 2022