LAHORE: The customer service at the field offices of the Lahore Electric Supply Company (Lesco) seems to have deteriorated, annoying the consumers.

On the other hand, the company’s management seems least interested in resolving the complaints quickly, stating that the company is currently facing a severe shortage of 15,000 officials.

The consumers complain that the official supposed to receive phone calls in case of any complaint often avoid attending calls on the landline and cell phone numbers printed on the electricity bills for lodging complaints.

“Most officials posted in the offices of SDO/assistant manager-operations don’t pick up phone calls. And if any of them picks the phone call, he doesn’t behave in good manners,” complains a resident of Johar Town.

“Neither executive engineers nor the SDO or their staff — whose numbers are printed on the bills — pick the calls. Whenever I asked the reason for not picking calls, the officials, instead of excusing, misbehaved. You can check yourself,” he deplored.

According to a resident of Chungi Amar Sadhu whose area falls in Sitara Colony subdivision, the Lesco area office never paid heed to the complaints — most lodged in person often after no one received the calls.

“It seems that the customer service in Lesco has collapsed as no one (XEN, SDO etc) picks the phone calls. In case one succeeds in getting the complaint lodged by phone or visiting the office, no one resolves the complaints on time,” he criticised, stating that the situation even forced him once to get the issue resolved after involving senior officials through someone.

Another customer complained that he tried to contact the area office SDO, XEN etc but no one bothered to attend the call. Later, I also requested a senior official but he also couldn’t do anything to stop these shutdowns,” he explained, demanding the Lesco CEO to intervene.

A senior official was of the view that Lesco’s sanctioned strength, which should be 34,000, comprises about 19,000 staffers.

“Lesco is a large company having 201 field formations (SDO offices), including around 130 in Lahore city district alone and rest in the districts of Kasur, Okara, Sheikhupura and Nankana Sahib. Besides these, the company has 41 divisions and eight circle offices,” he explained.

Despite the shortage, the company is trying hard to reach up to expectations of the consumers.

To a question, he claimed that the complaints related to overbilling had reduced a lot.

Meanwhile, a press release issued by Lesco claims resolving complaints quickly.

It says that on the last day, a total of 1,032 complaints of various types were received and out of which 1,023 were redressed on the spot.

The release quoted Lesco Chief Executive Officer Engineer Shahid Haider as stating that the company was solving the problems faced by the consumers in electricity bills and other matters immediately.

Meanwhile, Lesco teams detected as many as 414 connections from where the customers were pilfering electricity in the last 24 hour.

According to a spokesman, the company also submitted FIR applications against electricity thieves, out of which 127 FIRs have been registered in respective police stations, while 21 accused have been arrested.

During the last 24 hours of the anti-power theft campaign, the spokesman said, commercial consumers were also found involved in electricity theft.

Among the seized connections, 12 commercial, five agricultural, one industrial and 396 domestic connections were disconnected and charged with a total of 328,502 units as detection bill amounting to Rs15.049 million.

Published in Dawn, December 29th, 2024