LAHORE: In order to take more effective action against power theft, the Lahore Electric Supply Company (LESCO) has started a survey to get updated data of its industrial, commercial and large domestic consumers.
The survey was started on the directions of chief executive of LESCO who is supervising the teams directly and monitoring their daily activity. Under the survey, teams will update data of consumers such as sanctioned and present load, and status of meter.Under the law, every consumer is bound to notify LESCO about increase in its load but unfortunately this law is not being followed. All superintending engineers (SE) and executive engineers (XEN) are involved in the survey activity in their respective jurisdictions, a senior LESCO official said, adding the practice once completed will give the company true picture of its consumers.
On the other hand, LESCO is continuing its anti-power theft campaign and since June 28, 2013 the company recovered around Rs 110 million from over 284 power thieves. Available data of anti-power theft campaign revealed that so far most power pilferage was detected in northern circle (Badami Bagh, Ravi Road and other localities) where LESCO officials detected 135 cases, registered 10 FIRs and 23170 units were billed to power thieves.
Second was the Central Circle (Iqbal Town and etc) where officials detected 21 cases, registered 8 FIRs and 27281 units were billed to power thieves. Third was Eastern Circle (Shadman and etc) where 11 cases were detected, 5 FIRs were lodged and 2240 units were billed. According to sources, mostly power theft is due to involvement of LESCO staff, however, the LESCO has so far failed to frame any strict policy against such black-sheep in the department. Though the Southern Circle (Defence) remained lowest in numbers of power theft incidents but it stood first in recovery of stolen units. Only six cases were detected there but units billed to those thieves were 141,378.
LESCO officials revealed that nine to 10 mega watts of electricity has been saved from anti-theft campaign. They said involvement of police and FIA in the campaign along with LESCO had forced many power thieves to stop their activities while general public is also avoiding any such practices, which they could adopt in this season.Media consultant of LESCO, Ali Raza, said thieves always use modern technology to tamper the meter or steal electricity. He said in India, power thieves were using remote control devices, which are of the size of a compass box used by school students. The device, when attached with meter, produces high voltage and high frequency on pressing a button.LESCO has also decided to install new meters in boxes and at more high place on the pole than it installs normally. Secondly, CEO LESCO has directed XENs and SDOs to personally read meters of industrial, commercial and domestic premises. – DailyTimes
