PESHAWAR: The Peshawar Electric Supply Company has claimed a significant improvement in its financial position during the last financial year and said its annual net losses had significantly reduced in the financial year 2022–23.

“Our net losses have come down by Rs21 billion from Rs102 billion in 2021–22 to Rs81 billion in 2022–23,” spokesman for Pesco Usman Saleem told Dawn after a meeting of Pesco’s board of directors here on Friday.

Board chairman Faizullah Khan chaired the meeting, which was attended by Iftikhar Ahmad Khan, Syed Samar Shah, Hassan Raza Saeed, Mushtaq Ahmad Abbasi, Farhan Zafar Jhagra and other officials.

The spokesman said that the participants highlighted the power utility’s “struggle with a severe deficit of technical personnel operating at 44 per cent of the sanctioned staff as per yardstick approved in 2002.”

Says its net losses reduced from Rs102bn in 2021-22 to Rs81bn in 2022-23

He said that 40 per cent of the workers, who were aged 55 or above and unable to perform physical work on power lines, had “eventually reduced the effective workforce to the tune of 27 per cent only.”

Mr Saleem, however, said that Pesco had managed to reduce its losses and improve its recovery in the financial years 2022–23 and 2023–24 (July–April 2024).

He said that Pesco’s board of directors monitored the progress of ongoing projects.

The board also examined other measures, including the installation of aerial bundle cables, the implementation of enterprise resource planning, and the deployment of Pesco’s Geographical Information System infrastructure with the mapping of high-tension lines and distribution transformers completed, in addition to carrying out geo-tagging of most of Pesco’s assets.

The spokesman said that Pesco successfully completed loadshedding-free projects in Mardan and Peshawar circles, activated a task force, and expanded the Advanced Metering Infrastructure meter reading with over 30,000 AMR three-phase meters installed and all major commercial and industrial connections billed via an automated online metering system.

He also said that the procurement and installation of 65,000 AMR meters were under way in the World Bank programme for the complete conversion of all three-phase power connections to the AMI system, alongside a crackdown on electricity theft in the ongoing anti-theft campaign.

“These Pesco measures have significantly enhanced the company’s performance and improved the quality of customer service,” he said.

Mr Saleem said that power loadshedding was carried out on the basis of line losses.

He, however, said that consumers had the right to complain if they felt they’d been subjected to any injustice by Pesco officials.

Published in Dawn, May 25th, 2024