KP govt to crackdown against power theft mafia

F.P. Report
PESHAWAR: The provincial government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has decided stern action against the influential mafia involved in illegal use of electricity and Kunda culture.
In this connection, lists of various factories, hotels, commercial plazas, wedding halls, shopping malls, shops and illegal housing societies allegedly involved in electricity theft have also been prepared and a large-scale crackdown against them would be launched against them soon.
A decision in this regard was taken in the maiden meeting of the Provincial Task Force constituted by the provincial government for the purpose. The Task Force headed by the Secretary Home & Tribal Affairs is carrying out a campaign against the illegal use of electricity and recovery of dues from consumers in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa as per the priority of the Prime Minister of Pakistan.
Besides, head of the task force, Secretary Home & Tribal Affairs Abid Majeed, Secretary Energy Zulfikar Ali Shah, Commissioner Peshawar Zubair Khan, Commissioner Malakand Shahid ullah Khan, Deputy Secretary Industry/Commerce Maqbool Khan, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Peshawar Electric Supply Company (PESCO) Chief Fazal Rabi, Additional Secretary Power Division, Arshad Majeed Khan, Commissioners of various divisions, regional police officers and others attended the meeting.
The domestic consumers have also been warned to give up the Kunda culture with immediate effect, otherwise stern action will be taken against them under the framework of the law. The defaulters of electricity bills should also cooperate and pay their arrears early so that the country can be brought out of the current crisis. The participants of the meeting were told that since September 5, 2023, a total of 518 raids have been conducted across the province, 925 direct connections using illegal electricity were removed.
684 cases of power theft have been registered with different police stations while 28 people arrested and warnings were issued to 338 consumers. An amount of Rs. 4 million have been recovered from defaulters during last one week. According to CEO PESCO, there are Rs. 190 billion dues outstanding against defaulters and teams have been constituted for their recovery.
Additional Secretary Power Division Arshad Majeed Khan expressed his dissatisfaction with the performance of PESCO and said that most of the electricity theft is registered in Mardan, Charsadda, Bannu, Peshawar while the recovery targets are also slow.