LAHORE: The provincial lawmakers on Tuesday protested against the power distribution companies for overbilling the law-abiding consumers for electricity theft in their areas though it’s the responsibility of the companies as well as the government to control the theft. They raised their voice for overbilled consumers bearing the financial brunt of electricity theft.
In an indictment of power distribution companies, Punjab Assembly Speaker Malik Muhammad Ahmad Khan has declared hanging electrical wires a “recipe for death”.
This happened during a joint meeting of the Law Reforms Committee and Special Committee No. 16, chaired by Speaker Khan, to address grave public grievances regarding unannounced loadshedding, faulty billing, dangling power lines and systemic administrative negligence.
The lawmakers voiced concerns at power distribution companies penalising already paying consumers for the theft committed by others.
Protest overbilling law-abiding citizens for power theft; PA speaker questions rationale behind loadshedding due to handful of offenders
MPA Malik Ahmad Saeed Khan stressed that punishing law-abiding citizens instead of apprehending electricity thieves was completely unacceptable.
Underscoring the nightmarish process of administrative red tape, Speaker Khan lamented that rectifying an overbilled invoice would often take months, forcing the citizens to make endless trips between multiple offices. He questioned the justice in shutting down power supply to entire villages due to a handful of offenders, demanding that utility companies fix the grievance redressal mechanism rather than collective punishment.
Responding to the allegations, Lesco chief Ramzan Butt clarified that loadshedding was strictly calibrated according to feeder loss metrics, zero loadshedding on zero-loss feeders and proportionate outages on high-loss feeders to offset theft-induced losses. However, committee members swiftly rejected this methodology as fundamentally flawed and unjust to law-abiding consumers.
MPA Noorul Amin Wattoo brought attention to another public plight, noting that the citizens would frequently collect funds out of their pockets to repair damaged transformers, only to face criminal charges pressed by Lesco.
The committee also raised serious concerns at the complex, tedious compensation mechanism for victims of accidents involving Wapda or Lesco infrastructure.
The lawmakers also complained about the utter unresponsiveness of utility officers, with assembly member Samiullah Khan revealing that multiple attempts to reach the Lesco chief directly went unanswered.
Responding to the outrage, the additional secretary power assured the forum that committees at the executive engineer (EXEN) level were being constituted to resolve public complaints promptly, promising timely communication moving forward.
Wrapping up the session, Speaker Khan made it clear that the gathering was not a mere routine meeting but a decisive effort to resolve pressing public troubles.
Directing Lesco officials to step out of their air-conditioned offices and serve the public, the speaker directed the Lesco chief to submit concrete answers in the next session regarding measures against electricity theft and the urgent removal of dangerous dangling wires.
The session was attended by Law Minister Rana Muhammad Iqbal Khan, along with MPAs Amjad Ali Javed, Mian Tanveer Aslam Malik, Ahmad Iqbal Chaudhry, Zulfiqar Ali Shah, Uzma Kardar, Arif Mahmood Gill, Ahsan Raza Khan, Rana Muhammad Arshad, and senior officials from the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra), the Energy Department, National Transmission and Dispatch Company and Lesco.
Published in Dawn, October 7th, 2026
