LAHORE: The Lahore Electric Supply Company (Lesco) has recovered over Rs1.79bn from power thieves for stealing electricity during 2025.

According to Lesco Chief Executive Officer Muhammad Ramzan Butt, the Lesco teams, in collaboration with Pakistan Rangers and Punjab Police, launched a crackdown on power thieves from Jan 1 to Dec 31, 2025. During the year, Lesco received 78,358 complaints of power theft out of which 75,121 were about domestic consumers while 2,352, 721 and 164 complaints were reported about commercial, agricultural and industrial consumers, respectively.

“Lesco submitted applications for registration of FIRs against 77,985 consumers out of which 62,675 were registered. As many as 4,318 power thieves were arrested,” the Lesco CEO said in a press release.

“The teams detected power theft consisting of over 84 million units whereas over Rs1.79bn were received from thieves,” he said and warned that since the power theft was a burden on the honest consumers, the Lesco management would leave no stone unturned to take the thieves to task by using all resources.

“We request the public at large to cooperate with the authority in detecting power theft anywhere in its service areas,” he said.

INSPECTIONS: The city administration has intensified its drive to ensure enforcement of one-dish policy at all wedding halls and venues.

According to a spokesman for the administration, all 10 assistant commissioners in Lahore metropolitan city district have started paying repeated visits to the halls.

In tehsil Saddar, last night, 15 marriage halls were inspected where complete adherence to the law was observed while Allama Iqbal Town tehsil also reported zero violations. While the administration noted a welcoming trend of legal compliance in the majority of tehsils, it maintained a zero-tolerance stance in tehsil Raiwind where, during 11 inspections, two isolated violations were detected, resulting in the immediate imposition of heavy fines to deter future violations.

“Deputy Commissioner Syed Musa Raza has issued directives that any marriage hall found violating official time limits or the prescribed one-dish menu must be sealed immediately with legal proceedings initiated against the owners,” the spokesman said, adding that he also directed the ACs to personally supervise wedding functions late into the night and ensure that traffic management outside these venues was streamlined to prevent any inconvenience to the general public.

Highlighting that the widespread observance of the law is a testament to effective governance, the DC affirmed that no leniency would be extended to the few violators and urged the citizens to actively support this initiative by reporting any contraventions to the district control room.

DESILTATION: The Water and Sanitation Agency (Wasa) launched desiltation of all major city drains in a bid to improve the drainage system.

According to a spokesman, Wasa MD Ghufran Ahmed visited the Cantt Drain near Shadman Market to inspect the ongoing desilting operations. During the visit, Aziz Bhatti Town Director Sharjeel Hussain, briefed the MD on the current condition of the drain, progress of cleaning work and overall drainage capacity.

The Wasa MD appreciated the performance of the field staff and sought timely completion of cleaning of all drains. He emphasized that no compromise would be tolerated on the quality of desilting and instructed field officers to remain present on-site to closely monitor operations.

Published in Dawn, January 5th, 2026