LAHORE: The Lahore Electric Supply Company (Lesco) has reported the arrest of 43,150 people for electricity theft in Lahore and neighbouring districts since September 2023.

According to a company spokesman, Lesco teams identified 149,275 cases of electricity theft across its five service districts — Lahore, Sheikhupura, Nankana Sahib, Kasur and Okara.

The company filed 139,822 FIRs against the alleged power thieves at respective police stations, resulting in the arrest of 43,149 individuals. Lesco claims to have charged these violators a total of over 159.939 detection units, amounting to Rs5.890 billion in recovered costs.

Also, Lesco maintenance teams have installed 272 new 100kVA transformers in overloaded service areas to reduce issues like transformer failure and overloading. The installations include eight transformers in Lesco’s Northern Circle, 44 in Central Circle, 123 in Eastern Circle, 53 in Okara Circle, one in South Circle, 25 in Sheikhupura Circle, and 18 in Nankana Sahib Circle.

These upgrades are part of a region-wide system improvement initiative.

LDA: The Lahore Development Authority (LDA) sealed 373 properties on Monday due to non-payment of commercialisation fees and penalties.

According to an LDA spokesman, the town planning teams targeted 40 properties in Gulberg and Garden Town, 65 on Wahdat Road, 35 in Johar Town, 30 in Wapda Town, and 150 on Haider Road and Quaid-e-Azam Town. An additional 53 properties were sealed on Canal Road, Poonch Road, Samanabad, and Gujjarpura for illegal commercial usage and unpaid fees.

The sealed properties included schools, labs, clinics, cash-and-carry stores, call centres, rent-a-car offices, colleges, wedding halls, pharmacies, offices, beauty parlours and real estate offices.

Published in Dawn, November 5th, 2024