The electricity consumers in Pakistan have reached almost 22 million among them 20800 were found involved in power theft who inflicted Rs 18 billion loss to national exchequer during the last eleven months, revealed a document.
It says that Punjab stands at the top with 17.58 million consumers while reading of electricity meter is done through mobile phones. There are five power distribution companies working in Punjab, two in KP and FATA, one is Balochistan, two in Sindh for power transmission in rural areas and one in Karachi.
The report said that in Punjab’s LESCO region, there are 3.6 million consumers, GEPCO 2.9 million, FESCO 3.5 million, IESCO 2.5 million and MEPCO 5 million. Multan region tops in Punjab with highest number of consumers of electricity.
In KP, Peshawar region has 2.6 million electricity users and HESCO 0.8 million. In Sindh, Sukkur electricity company is providing power to 0.37 million, Quetta electric supply company 0.466 million while overall electricity consumers in the country are almost 22 million. The electricity meters reading of 91pc consumers is done through mobile phones, said the report. It said that increase in power theft was witnessed during the last eleven months while cases were registered against 20800 consumers for power theft.
Peshawar remained at the top of the list where 5000 incidents of power theft were reported while in Islamabad 3800, Multan region 5000, Lahore region 1542, HESCO 82 and in Sukkur region 6 incidents were reported. The government has had to recover Rs 18 billion from electricity thieves while only Rs 7.50 billion could be recovered.
