PESHAWAR, July 21: Power theft in many suburban areas of the city is one of the main reasons behind prolonged power disruptions causing immense hardships to people.

“Despite paying my power bills on time, I have to face power outages for long hours,” said a resident of Warsak Road, located adjacent to Mathra, one of the suburban villages where power theft is rampant.

“Why should I suffer when I settle my dues without fail!” said the annoyed resident.

The suburban areas of Peshawar including Regi, Palosi, Warsak, Mathra, Kochian, Badaber and Acheeni are suffering from power failures extending over two to three hours as well as low voltage.

“This is because the suburbs are consuming more power than what is due,” said an official of Peshawar Electric Supply Company (Pesco).

“Power worth Rs10 million a month is consumed in Regi while the profit earned is only Rs6,000,” said the official of Pesco, which is running in losses worth Rs7 billion a year.

“Given the sultry conditions and frequent power failures, it is impossible to have even forty winks at night, let alone a peaceful slumber,” said Shujaat Ali, a resident of Kohat Road, located adjacent to Matani, another village on the outskirts of Peshawar.

Through illegal Kunda connections, people in these areas are stealing electricity from the wires meant for supplying power to other suburban areas.

As a solution to this, Pesco had installed small transformers of 15KV-20KV capacity in the areas in question, said the official.

He said that since Kunda connections didn’t work in case of small transformers, the residents of Badaber destroyed 11 of the 12 such transformers installed in the area.

For lack of cooperation from Nazims and other local representatives, the project for the installation of such transformers failed to materialise, said the Peshawar Electric Supply Company official.

A disciplinary action had been taken against 120 Pesco employees, mostly linemen, involved in assisting consumers in power theft, said the Pesco official.

Some of the nazims alleged that Pesco compensated for line losses by carrying out unscheduled loadshedding in city areas like Khyber Bazar, Qissa Khwani Bazar, Rampura Gate, Ashraf Road, Karimpura, Faqirabad, Pachaggi Road, Warsak Road and Tehkal area on the University Road.

The Peshawar Electric Supply Company staff always attributed the power suspension to the maintenance work, said the nazims.