Several employees of the Faisalabad Electric Supply Company are involved in stealing electrical goods. An inquiry committee has pointed out that goods worth millions of rupees have been stolen by four employees including SDO.
Moreover, FESCo has claimed to nab 408 power thieves in the last one month and fined more than Rs 70 million while cases were registered against 322 of them.
According to sources, scrap metal, transformers and other equipment were stolen from FESCO in which various FESCO officers and employees were suspected to be involved.
On which the FESCO chief executive formed an inquiry committee which has investigated the theft of this electrical equipment and issued a report in which it has been clarified that SDO Zargam Abbas, Line Superintendent First Qamar Abbas, Line Superintendent First Sajjad Akhtar, Line Superintendent Second Muhammad Wahid have been found involved in material theft. It should be noted that despite the release of the report of the inquiry committee 10 days ago, no action has been taken by the FESCO authorities and all the employees are busy in paying their duties.
On the other hand, on the instructions of the Ministry of Energy (Power Division) and Chief Executive FESCO Engineer Arshad Munir, FESCO sub-divisional task forces and M&T teams carried out operations against power thieves in five circles of the region for domestic, agricultural, industrial and commercial consumers. The connection was checked. During January, FESCO teams conducted house-to-house checks and checked a total of 1,38,754 connections in different areas of the five FESCO region circles, including Faisalabad First, Second, Jhang, Sargodha and Mianwali. Out of which 321 consumers were found guilty of direct supply, 66 meters of perforated and body drilling, 10 meters of shunt system, 7 meters of crooked and neutral brakes while 4 consumers were found guilty of power theft by changing phase polarity.
According to the FESCO report, all these power thieves were given a total of 4.64 million detection units for which consumers were fined Rs. 79.2 million. FESCO recovery staff has also recovered more than Rs 43.4 million from these power thieves meanwhile, applications for registration of cases have been filed in the concerned police stations for legal action against all these power thieves, out of which cases have been registered against 32 consumers.
Chief Executive FESCO Engineer Arshad Munir has directed FESCO staff to expedite action against power thieves without any discrimination. He said that strict action would be taken against the consumers and employees involved in heinous national crime like power theft and legal action would be taken against them along with heavy fines. He appealed to the consumers to immediately report any incident of power theft to the Ministry of Energy hotline 051-9103888, FESCO toll free number 080066554, helpline 118 or the relevant sub-division so that FESCO region This curse can be eradicated.