PESHAWAR, July 21: The Peshawar Electric Supply Company has asked the federal government to make payment of Rs284.23 million outstanding dues against consumers, medical relief camps and tent villages in earthquake-hit areas.

This was stated at a meeting held at the Wapda House here on Thursday to review performance of different circles of Pesco during fiscal year 2005-06.

Pesco chief executive Brig Sakhi Marjan presided over the meeting, which was attended by chief engineer (operation) Mohammad Shafiq Khan, chief engineer (tech) Roshan Din, chief engineer (customer services) Iqbal Ali Shah and other senior Pesco officers.

Superintending engineers informed the meeting about performance of their respective circles.

Brig Marjan expressed concern over performance of some circles. He asked sub-engineers to improve their performance and reduce line losses. He also urged them to improve recovery so that the target could be achieved.

He said he would monitor and review performance of different circles during his monthly visits and warned that any laxity would not be tolerated and officials concerned would be taken to task.

He said every government connection should be checked by SDOs because it had been noticed that in some cases, illegal connections had been taken from government connections, causing losses to Pesco.

The Pesco chief executive asked sub-engineers to ensure that connections which had been cut for different reasons were not restored.

He also expressed concern over theft of electricity.