The Lahore Electric Supply Company (LESCO) detected a total of 282 connections from where power consumers were pilfering electricity in all its circles of five districts during anti-power theft crackdown.A LESCO spokesman told the media on Wednesday that the company had submitted applications to the police stations concerned for registration of FIRs against 268 electricity thieves, out of which 176 cases were registered, while 24 accused were arrested. The anti-power theft operations against electricity thieves are being conducted on the directives of the Federal Power Division and the LESCO Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Engineer Shahid Haider is supervising these operations.

The LESCO chief vowed that the operations would continue without discrimination until the complete end of electricity theft. The electricity pilferers as well as the LESCO officers and employees who facilitate them are also being brought to justice. On the 68th consecutive day of anti-power theft campaign, the spokesman added, large agricultural and commercial consumers were also found involved in electricity theft and all of them were also disconnected and charged with detection units. Among the seized connections 20 were commercial, 02 agricultural and 260 domestic, and all these connections were disconnected and charged with a total of 307,574 units as detection bill amounting to Rs 13.186 million.

He explained that LESCO charged Rs 298,000 as detection bill against 6,000 units to an electricity pilferer in Shahdara Lahore; Rs 295,000 fine in the form of detection bill against 5,700 to another customer stealing electricity in Begum Kot area; Rs 200,000 detection bill against 3,780 units to another power thief in Green Town Lahore; and Rs 150,000 as detection bill to an electricity thief in Batapur.During the 68 days of grand anti-theft campaign, the spokesman mentioned, the LESCO detected pilferage on 26,125 power connections and submitted 25,847 FIR applications against electricity thieves in the relevant police stations out of which 24,998 FIRs have been registered, while 12,568 accused have so far been arrested by the police. The LESCO has so far charged a total of 48,108,264 detection units worth Rs 1,990,830,066 to all the power pilferers.

 
Credit: Independent News Pakistan (INP)