HYDERABAD: Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Hyderabad Electric Supply Company (HESCO) Asadullah said power theft was the main reason of loadsheding and this problem could not be effectively controlled until the culture of electricity theft was completely curbed.
He expressed these views while talking to the media at Hyderabad press club here on Friday.
"It's not possible to stop the power outages unless power theft and kunda system doesn't end," he said. The CEO informed that since he assumed the charge in August, 2016, the crackdown against the defaulting consumers and electricity thieves had been expedited.
As many as 48,000 connections of the consumers who had defaulted payment of their utility bills as well as 38,000 illegal connections had been cut off since then, he added.
"We are also taking stringent action against the HESCO employees who are found involved or colluding with the electricity theft," he said and added that 12 employees had been fired in that regard so far.
Responding to a question, Asadullah informed that the areas with high percentage of default were earlier facing either extended hours of outages from the feeder or their transformers were removed.
He acknowledged that such a punitive action adversely affected the consumers who regularly pay the bills.
Therefore, he added, the company had started to provide small transformers in such areas so that the genuine consumers were not affected.
The CEO informed that the company owes over Rs. 71 billion in payables from its consumers including both the government and private consumers.
He added that the Sindh government had to pay Rs. 29.3 billion to HESCO while the unpaid bills of the private consumers had accrued to Rs39.84 billion.
The HESCO chief also complained against the police saying that they did not register FIRs on complaint of the HESCO's staff against the power theft.
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