ISLAMABAD: The government has decided to hand over loss-making Discos to the Pak Army and law enforcement agencies to effectively curb electricity theft and losses and improve recovery of electricity bills.
The Performance Monitoring Units (PMUs) in every loss-making DISCO are to be headed by a serving brigadier and his supporting staff will comprise officials from FIA and IB with the mandate to identify unscrupulous elements both in DISCOs and people involved in abetting and stealing electricity. The officials would have the powers to take actions.
“We have carved out a plan which is yet to be approved by higher authorities. However, the top functionaries of Power Division have made up their minds to start implementing the plan from HESCO (Hyderabad Electric Supply Company) as a pilot project,” secretary power was quoted as saying in The News.
“This will help identify unscrupulous elements within the DISCO and people hand in glove with theft of electricity and causing billions of rupee losses to national exchequer.”
According to the data for the financial year 2020-21 available with The News, the recovery of electricity bills in HESCO was at 73.7 percent, in SPECO 64.6 percent, in QESCO at 34.66 percent and TESCO at 25.29 percent.
The caretaker energy minister on September 6 announced a crackdown plan on electricity thieves mentioning that the system annually braves the colossal loss on account of electricity theft and failure to pay bills amounting to Rs589 billion.
