LAHORE: Federal Minister for Energy (Power Division) Omar Ayub Khan admits that the power theft anywhere in the country is not possible without connivance of distribution companies’ officials and those facilitating the domestic, commercial and industrial consumers in stealing electricity are being monitored by the monitoring intelligence wings and other allied sources.

“It is true that the power theft is not possible without the help of Discos’ officials. That is why I express doubts over Discos’ data on power theft, officials’ involvement, corruption etc being shared with the ministry. Therefore, I am getting this data checked by our monitoring intelligence wings and other available sources since I am not ready to declare the same as based on facts,” Federal Minister Omer Ayub Khan told Dawn.

He said Peshawar, Bannu, D.I Khan and Shabqadar were notorious where monthly line losses, including power theft, had reached Rs4 billion. “Kunda culture (electricity stealing directly from the 11kV distribution lines) has become a routine in these areas falling within territorial service jurisdiction of Pesco.”

Similarly, he said the theft in the service areas of other companies including Lesco, Fesco, Iesco, Mepco, Sepco, Hesco, Qesco and Tesco has also become a serious issue.

Minister says Rs4bn per month theft in four KP districts

“How a common man/consumer, who is always afraid of touching a live wire and meters can steal electricity without the help of staff concerned? They (the officials, right from the line man to chief engineer) are involved in the theft. And now they have become gangs and we will smash break their networks by all means,” he said.

The minister said the anti-power theft operation, which was earlier limited to industry in KP, had been widened to all consumers from Saturday. “In Punjab the operation against all sorts of power theft (domestic, commercial and industrial) is already underway. The preparatory work related to launching similar operations in Balochistan and Sindh is also underway. And soon the operations would be launched there too,” he added.

He said his ministry had decided to empower BoDs of all Discos. But before empowering them, the ministry would impart them necessary training to deal with various affairs wisely and quickly. The BoDs would also be responsible to appoint Discos’ CEOs on a permanent basis.

“At present there is practice in the ministry to appoint BoDs as stop-gap arrangement. But we are planning to empower Discos to deal with such matters independently. The BoDs would also be trained how to gauge the Discos’ performance. We have made a template/matrix in this regard,” he maintained.

The minister claimed that due to various steps his ministry took within first 100 days, reduction in line losses and improvement in recovery worth Rs13 billion was recorded in the month of October, this year.

Published in Dawn, December 4th, 2018