PESHAWAR, March 18: Wapda Chairman Lt-Gen Zulfiqar Ali Khan terminated the services of an executive engineer and a lineman, and suspended a sub-divisional officer and a line superintendent here on Monday.

The chairman terminated the services of Naeem Khan, an executive engineer of Peshawar Electricity Supply Company, for failing to control line losses in his jurisdiction.

The chairman took action against the executive engineer after he was informed, during a briefing by the Pesco chief, that line losses in the rural cantonment circle were as high as 57 per cent of the total electricity supplied to the areas falling under its ambit, said official sources.

Later, responding to electricity users’ complaints and grievances at an open kutchery at the Wapda House, Lt-Gen Zulfiqar ordered suspension of the SDO and a line superintendent of the Wazirbagh sub-division.

He took action on a complaint that the Wapda staff had not replaced a defective transformer rendering people of the locality to remain without electricity for the last six days.

He also asked Pesco Chief Executive Brig Khalid to conduct inquiry against Line Superintendent Noor Elahi accused of demanding from people Rs9,000 for replacing the transformer.

Taking action on a complaint by the owner of a petrol pump at Nowshera, the Wapda chairman issued orders, terminating the services of a linesman, Naseer. The complainant had accused the linesman of demanding bribe for restoring his electricity supply disconnected on stealing charges.

The chairman took the action after he learnt that the linesman had tried to create hurdles for the petrol pump owner despite the fact that he had paid the actual bill as well as the fine imposed on him for stealing electricity.

The chairman, who was on a short visit to Peshawar, took exception to Pesco authorities, SDOs and their subordinate staff in response to public complaints about their inefficiency and incompetency.

Ordering immediate execution of a village electrification scheme — which was approved by the Pesco chief in May but could not be carried out due to bureaucratic red tapeism — the chairman observed: “It is a matter of shame that we could not finalize a May 2001 case”.

He directed the Pesco authorities to hold inquiry into a complaint by an old woman who said that her son, a Wapda employee, was missing for the last five years.