LAHORE: As power consumers are already overburdened by record-high electricity tariff, overbilling allegedly on the part of Lesco’s various field formations has rendered them stunned.
The issue has also forced the Lesco’s top management to hold a crucial meeting to find ways to control overbilling and provide relief to the consumers at large.
“Our last year’s bill for the month of January was over Rs6,000 at the time when all family members were here. But this time, when our entire family is abroad and there is only one member residing in the house, our bill is over Rs30,000,” wondered a consumer of Township while talking to Dawn on Monday.
“In the entire street, none, except we, received such a huge bill, as their bill ranged between Rs8,000 and Rs12,000. No one bothered when we complained,” he deplored, requesting the power division (ministry of energy) and the Lesco CEO to look into such issues seriously.
Lesco head holds meeting to sort out overbilling issue
Talking to this reporter, a consumer of a rural area of Kasur (Bahadurpura Subdivision), said for the last many months, he, off and on, used to receive inflated bills. According to him, though he paid some bills without seeing meter reading, he complained after he found meter reader charging more units than the actually used ones. “Last year in June, we received a bill amounting to Rs5,286 that we paid accordingly. But in July, we received bill of Rs295,640, followed by another of Rs629,256 and then Rs710,806 in August and September, respectively despite the fact no family member visited the house for long. We complained but no one heard us and the officials kept overcharging us. And finally it increased to Rs737,179,” he explained.
He said when he visited the office to get the bill corrected, the field team removed meter and disconnected supply. The consumer has appealed to the Lesco management to get a forensic test of the meter conducted to ascertain the actual reading.
He said besides him, a number of people are facing overbilling and other issues.
It merits mentioning that the complaints related to overbilling in Lesco continue rising despite dismissal of several officials from service on overbilling and other complaints.
In recent months, Kot Khwaja Saeed SDO Usman Ghani was removed from service in light of the probe into four cases. He was found lodging FIRs illegally, charging the consumers detection bills under ‘ulterior’ motives, facilitating power theft and helping out defaulters through restoring power supply unlawfully and doing intentional delay in billing.
In another case, Safdarabad SDO Habibur Rehman was removed from service on account of facilitating the power theft whereas the Phoolnagar SDO faced dismissal over involvement in the billing fraud.
Likewise, Bilal Ganj SDO Ehsanullah Farooqi was sacked for installing illegal connections whereas Allama Iqbal Town SDO Tanveer Khan and Mehmood Booti SDO Sirajuddin Kakar faced dismissal after the charges of receiving bribe proved during inquiries.
Kahna SDO Amir Aziz was sacked because of installing electricity connections in the unelectrified areas and fleecing the consumers through overbilling. Ali Razabad SDO Nadeem Akhta6r was removed from service on account of overbilling whereas Qila Sattar Shah SDO Mehboob Alam faced action after he was found involved in facilitating electricity theft by a steel manufacturing factory.
Kasur Rural Division Executive Engineer Imdad Ali Naich was removed from service due to increase in defaulters, poor performance, less recovery etc.
On the other hand, Lesco Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Engineer Shahid Haider presided over a high-level meeting to discuss ways and means to control overbilling here on Monday.
According to a spokesman, during the meeting, the CEO directed the top management to take stringent measures to control the issue of overbilling and take stern departmental action against the negligent officers and employees.
He instructed the director (HR) to improve the matters regarding the promotion of officers and employees so that they could be promoted timely.
Meanwhile, the spokesman says Lesco in collaboration with tehsildars (recovery), has so far recovered more than Rs2.30 billion from 78,261 chronic defaulters in all circles.
Published in Dawn, February 13th, 2024
