Over-billing by power companies: Parliamentary panel to hold open public forums at selected areas

A parliamentary panel Thursday decided to hold open public forums at selected areas, especially in rural areas, to look into the issue of over-billing by power companies. This was decided by the sub-committee of Public Accounts Committee (PAC) which met here under the chairmanship of Raja Pervez Asharf. The meeting took up the issue of an estimated Rs 3 billion power over-billing to the electricity consumers of District Kasur in 2014-15.
The committee also criticised the slab system in electricity bills. Senator Shibli Faraz of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf said that names of the 300 top defaulters of power bills must be made public.
The officials of the Power Division, Ministry of Energy, briefing the meeting said that actual reason behind over-billing was power theft by consumers. They said that out of 277,000 complaints of power over-billing in Kasur, only 7,939 were genuine while rest were bogus, adding that 1,000 complaints are still under investigation.
Secretary Power Division acknowledged that over-billing is a real issue, saying the real cause behind the over billing remains the power theft.
He said that the ministry is making all-out efforts to check corruption within the system and take action against power pilferers.
He said that over 1,300 people have been arrested and 18,795 first information reports (FIR) were registered over the past few months during a crackdown on power thieves.
He said that accessibility is a serious issue to check the power theft cases in parts of Balochistan, adding Quetta Electricity Supply Company (QESCO) is making all efforts to reach everywhere to collect power bills from consumers.
Shibli Faraz said that this is just a lame excuse as in every briefing officials are coming up with such statements and this problem has been persisting there over the past 70 years, which needs to be addressed.
The secretary Power Division said that on the network of Sukhur Electricity Power Company (SEPCO), 60 feeders have been purged of power theft and rest will be purged within coming months.
The chairman committee said that over-billing of power and gas has made the lives of poor consumers miserable and the government must take appropriate steps to address the issue as early as possible.
The officials informed the panel that in Punjab over-billing is linked with the tampering of the electricity meters, adding that the concerned departments are directed to take prompt action on the complaints of the power consumers.