HYDERABAD, Dec 26: Federal Minister for Water and Power Liaquat Ali Jatoi has directed the Hyderabad Electric Supply Company (Hesco) to disconnect power supply to the power thieves and take measures to recover arrears from the consumers whose power supply has been disconnected on a permanent basis.

Addressing Hesco officials at the company's conference room on Tuesday the minister directed to remove immediately all the de-fittings, which had been installed onto feeders, to ensure uninterrupted electric supply to the consumers.

He advised the officials to hold open katchehries with elected representatives of people and consumers in their respective areas to solve consumers’ problems at their doorsteps.The minister urged to speed up pace of work on the electrification of villages and complete the work within stipulated period. He appreciated the vigilance committees’ work and announced that the company would pay two per cent of the recovered revenue to Hesco task force and vigilance committees.

He directed to accelerate survey for the construction of a new grid station in Mehrabpur and announced two months additional salary and commendatory certificates for executive engineer operation division of Kotri Muzaffar Hussain Abbasi and executive engineer operation division of Phulelli Bashir Baloch for good performance.

Hesco Chief Executive Maqbool Ahmed Khwaja told the minister that the company had recovered an additional amount of Rs1,211.9 million during the current year, more than the previous year's recovery.

He said that the vigilance committees succeeded in recovering Rs150 million from power thieves and defaulters and Rs71.744 million during checking of 76,244 metres. The company also regularised 60,583 kunda connections, he added.

Mr Khwaja said that the company filed 139 FIRs against power thievesn and issued letters to concerned police stations asking them to register FIRs against 7,720 power thieves and people involved in different power-related crimes.