PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government has reconstituted the provincial taskforce and enforcement committees at provincial, district and tehsil levels to effectively combat power theft and ensure recovery from defaulters.

The home and tribal affairs department notified the reconstitution of the taskforce and district and tehsil enforcement committees here on Wednesday.

The notification said that provincial taskforce would be headed by secretary of home and tribal affairs department while secretaries of energy and power, industries, representatives of power division, additional inspector general of special branch, divisional commissioners, regional police officers, chief executive of Peshawar Electric Supply Company and director finance and procurement of Pesco would be its members.

The taskforce will be responsible to devise a strategy and effective mechanism for focused and sustainable campaign throughout the province against power theft by targeting high loss commercial, agricultural, industrial and domestic connections and defaulters.

Enforcement committees will also recover dues from defaulters

Besides, it will also review the progress made by the district and tehsil enforcement committee and the issues faced by them and take necessary action to resolve them.

The district enforcement committees will be headed by the deputy commissioner while district police officer, relevant senior engineer of Pesco and officials of special branch will be its members.

This committee will be responsible for monitor the performance of tehsil committees and submit a report to the provincial taskforce and chief executive of Pesco in this regard. Similarly, tehsil enforcement committee will be headed by the relevant assistant commissioner and it will submit daily report with its comments and recommendations to the district enforcement committee.

The tehsil committee will be responsible for launching, conducting and supervising focused and sustained operation by utilising local police force to remove direct hooks and illegal connection, recover outstanding dues from Pesco defaulters and register FIRs against defaulters.

Besides, Pesco will identify illegal hooks and defaulters and will also provide legal assistance to tehsil enforcement committees through its legal counsels for police stations.

In addition to this, power theft reporting cell will be established in each assistant commissioner’s office with dedicated telephone lines to receive information from people about culprits. Pesco for its part will share the list of feeder along with the losses and details about the industrial connections before the launch of the operation.

The notification said that enforcement teams comprising staff of Pesco, local administration and police would ensure combing of industrial and commercial connections, especially targeting high loss feeders. FIRs will be registered against the culprits under the Electricity Act wherever theft is detected and Pesco staff will submit application to police for the purpose.

In addition to this, on spot removal of equipment will be ensured at the site of electricity theft and relevant executive engineer will ensure that power supply is not resumed at the site illegally. Besides, police will provide necessary security to the field teams to avoid any mishap or law and order situation.

Police will complete investigation of FIRs registered by the enforcement team within 14 days and submit a copy of challan to the tehsil enforcement committee.

Published in Dawn, September 7th, 2023