Almost 21K Thieves Caused Rs. 18 Billion in Losses

The electricity consumers in Pakistan have reached almost 22 million. Among them 20,800 were found involved in power theft. They collectively inflicted Rs. 18 billion in losses to the national exchequer during the last eleven months, revealed a document.

Punjab stands at the top with 17.58 million consumers while reading of electricity meters is done through mobile phones. There are five power distribution companies working in Punjab, two in KP and FATA, one in Balochistan and 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 has 2.9 million, FESCO with 3.5 million, IESCO has 2.5 million and MEPCO serves 5 million. Multan region tops Punjab with the highest number of electricity consumers.

In KP, Peshawar region has 2.6 million electricity users and HESCO has 0.8 million. In Sindh, Sukkur electricity company is providing power to 0.37 million, Quetta electric supply company serves 0.466 million while overall electricity consumers in the country are almost 22 million.

The electricity meter reading of 91% of the consumers is done through mobile phones, said the report. It said that an increase in power theft was witnessed during the last eleven months while cases were registered against 20,800 consumers for power theft.

Multan  and Peshawar remained at the top of the list where 5,000 incidents of power theft were reported. Incidents reported from other areas stand at Islamabad 3800, Lahore region 1,542, HESCO 82 and in Sukkur region 6.

The government had to recover Rs. 18 billion from electricity thieves while only Rs. 7.50 billion could be recovered.