LAHORE: A team of the Lahore Electric Supply Company (Lesco) has detected massive electricity pilferage at a nine-storey hotel in the Davies Road Sub-Division.

According to spokesman, Basharat Muhammad, the hotel owner, was caught stealing electricity by a Lesco inspection team by hooking wires and caused a loss of millions of rupees to the power distribution company.

The accused was using stolen electricity to run 27 air-conditioners installed in the hotel, he said, adding that Lesco teams seized the wires used in electricity theft and got him arrested after a case was registered. “The hotel owner has also been fined Rs7 million in the form of detection bill,” he added.

The spokesman said the accused also owns some other hotels as well in different areas of Lahore and Lesco teams have started checking power connections of these establishments.

On the other hand, Lesco teams detected another 407 power pilferers on the 31st day of the ongoing anti-power theft campaign. The teams also submitted applications for registration of FIRs against 405 electricity thieves, out of which 193 FIRs were registered in respective police stations, while 43 accused have been arrested.

Among the severed connections, three are industrial, 18 commercial, nine agricultural and 377 domestic. The consumers owning these connections were charged a total of 1,458,233 electricity units as detection bill amounting to Rs36.535 million.

He said Lesco teams charged Rs4.928m detection bill against 88,000 units to an electricity pilferer on Davies Road Lahore, Rs 1.1m fine in the form of detection bill against 13,825 units to another consumer found stealing electricity in Saleem Garden area of Shahdara, Rs726,912 detection bill against 30,288 units to a power thief in Sara-i-Mughal and Rs500,000 as detection bill against 10,638 units to an electricity thief in Hanjarwal area of Lahore.

During the 31 days of the campaign, the spokesman mentioned, the Lesco detected pilferage on 14,690 power connections and submitted 14,556 FIR applications against electricity thieves in the relevant police stations, out of which 13,599 FIRs have been registered, while 4,791 accused so far arrested by the police. The Lesco has so far charged the power pilferers a total of 30,985,410 detection units worth total Rs1,373,010,597.

Meanwhile the Lesco teams, in collaboration with Tehsildars (Recovery) has recovered Rs18m from 694 chronic defaulters in all the five districts — Lahore, Sheikhupura, Nankana Sahib, Kasur and Okara — on the 25th day of its recovery campaign. Up till now the teams recovered more than Rs702m from 21,587 defaulters in its all circles of operation.

GAS: During the ongoing crackdown against gas pilferers, Sui Northern Gas Pipeline Limited (SNGPL) teams disconnected another 214 connections, while imposing A fine of Rs13m on pilferers.

In Lahore, the regional team disconnected 22 connections for illegal use of gas and another five for use of compressor. In Bahawalpur, the regional team disconnected 10 connections for use of compressor. The company disconnected 19 connections for illegal use of gas, while another four for compressor use in Multan.

Published in Dawn, October 9th, 2023