KOHAT: The Peshawar Electric Supply Company has claimed that the total line losses and power theft stand at a staggering Rs9.3 billion on 53 feeders in Kohat district.

The company came up with the figures to justify prolonged power outages in the district after the civil administration and the police requested it to restore power supply to pacify consumers, who have been holding protests and blocking roads for quite some time. In some areas the people have also boycott the anti-polio campaigns in protest against the power cuts.

A Pesco official said the power utility had to resort to power suspensions on the feeders, which showed more than 60 per cent losses.

The official said there were arrears of Rs6.7 billion on 24 rural and urban feeders of 11KV each, but the recovery rate was dismal.

He said they had strict orders from high-ups to cut the supplies to those areas where losses were very high. He said consumers had also taken direct connections and tampered with their meters to steal power.

The official said loadshedding was being carried out on the Urban-II, Lachi-I, and Lachi-II express lines because of high rate of theft and outstanding dues.

Similarly, he said in Kohat city division, the arrears amounted to astounding Rs2.6 billion with aggregate commercial and technical losses of 26.74 per cent and a recovery of only 20.74 per cent.

He said city division covered Urban-I, College Town, Gumbat tehsil, Kotal Town and Babri Banda.

Published in Dawn, March 8th, 2024