LAHORE: While operation of the Lahore Electric Supply Company (Lesco) against power theft by the consumers continues, its own 10 high officials were found involved in corruption of serious nature.

Lesco removed nine sub-divisional officers (SDOs) and one executive engineer (EXENs) from service for corruption. One SDO was involved in registering fake FIRs against consumers and charging them detection bills for ulterior motives, Dawn has learnt.

The company has also imposed major penalties on 17 other officers as per the gravity of their offences.

“Removing 11 officers from service and imposing major penalties on 17 others is not a small thing as such extreme disciplinary action against a number of officers has never happened in the company in the past,” Lesco Director (Customer Service) Rai Muhammad Asghar said while talking to Dawn on Thursday.

One EXEN, nine SDOs sacked; 17 other officers imposed penalties

“This internal cleaning operation will also continue side by side with the ongoing operation against the power theft,” he declared.

According to documents, Kot Khawaja 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.

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.

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 against them proved correct 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 Akhtar 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.

The 17 other officers (SDOs/EXENs) who faced various major penalties for overbilling, poor performance and other charges included Mohsin Ali, Habib Ahmad, Rana Abid Dilshad, Ibrahim Mumtaz Mufti, Shahid Farooq, Imdad Ali, Muhammad Muzammil, Ali Abbas, Mirza Aqeel Baig, Rashid Soomro, Zafarullah, Waqar Ahmad and Asif Majeed.

“At present, several inquiries against many officers are underway. Soon, more guilty officers would either be removed from service or they would face other punishment as per their offence,” Lesco CEO Shahid Haidar told Dawn.

On the other hand, the Lesco field teams detected massive power theft at three commercial plazas in Lahore.

During the 42 days’ consecutive anti-power-theft-related operation, the Lesco teams have, so far, detected 19,275 connections from where the customers were pilfering electricity in the districts in its jurisdiction. On Thursday, hundreds of new power theft cases, including three plazas (two in Anarkali) and one at Ram Gali (Sultanpura), were detected.

According to a Lesco spokesman, the company submitted FIR applications against 19,113 electricity thieves, out of which 18,237 FIRs have been registered with respective police stations while 6,478 suspects had been arrested.

The electricity thieves had been charged with over 38.882 million units amounting to over Rs1.76bn. On the 42nd consecutive day (October 19) of anti-power theft campaign, the spokesman added, the Lesco teams found 372 connections involved in electricity theft in all its circles and submitted FIRs against 370 electricity thieves in the respective police stations, out of which 208 FIRs had been registered while 29 suspects had been arrested.

Among the seized connections, 16 were commercial, four agricultural, one industrial and 351 domestic. Electricity supply to all these connections was severed and they were charged a total of 568,423 units as detection bill, amounting to Rs310m.

Published in Dawn, October 20th, 2023