Daily Times

The provincial task force is working on a fast-track basis to declare Peshawar a load-shedding-free model district. In the last few days, record recovery has been made from defaulting consumers, and the use of illegal electricity has been eliminated in most of the feeders, including Peshawar and D.I. Khan, and now these feeders will be declared load-shedding-free.

These views were expressed by the head of the provincial task force for energy, Additional Chief Secretary Home and Tribal Affairs, Mohammad Abid Majeed, while presiding over the seventh meeting of the forum, according to a press release issued here on Wednesday.

Besides, divisional commissioners, regional police officers, Secretary Energy and Power Nisar Ahmad Khan, representative officer of the Industries Department, and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Peshawar Electric Supply Company (PESCO), Qazi Tahir, also attended the meeting of the task force.

It was informed in the meeting that a provincial task was created for the recovery of dues from electricity consumers in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and to stop the misuse of electricity. In a short period of 3 months, the force has so far recovered more than Rs. 7.74 billion, while joint teams of the Peshawar Electric Supply Company (PESCO) formed against power pilferers and defaulters have imposed fines to the tune of Rs. 40.041 million. Similarly, 57482 power connections have been disconnected, and more than 20,000 cases have been registered against power pilferers, while 924 accused have been arrested.

In addition to this, the successful campaign has also brought a significant reduction in line losses. After Mardan, the provincial capital, Peshawar, was also selected to be declared a load-shedding-free model city.

The campaign is continuing on 83 feeders in Peshawar in six phases. The first three phases include recovery and measures against electricity theft. The first three-phase targets have been achieved by almost 100%, while the campaign on the remaining feeders in Peshawar will be completed in the next few days.

In the meeting, it was stated that the cleared feeders in Peshawar should be immediately declared load-shedding-free and steps should be taken for the recovery of arrears from the defaulting federal government institutions and consumers through blocking their identity cards and passports and freezing their assets.