PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government has decided to make Peshawar, the provincial capital, a load-shedding-free after making Mardan district a load-shedding free model city.

A plan has been finalized to speed up the recovery of dues from defaulting electricity consumers and to prevent the misuse of electricity in Peshawar city.

Necessary instructions have been issued to the district administration, police officials and Peshawar Electric Supply Company (Pesco) operational teams across the province.

It has also been decided to speed up the process of installing meters in areas deprived of the facility of electricity meters and to increase the recovery targets from defaulting electricity consumers of all feeders.

Secretary Energy and Electricity Nisar Ahmad Khan, Deputy Secretary Industry Maqbool Khan, all Divisional Commissioners, Regional Police Officers and Chief Executive Officer (Pesco) and other senior officials attended the meeting.

It was told in the meeting that in a short period of one and a half months, the provincial task force has so far recovered more than Rs.2.5 billion from the bill paying consumers, more than 200million rupees from the elements involved in the heinous act of electricity theft.

Similarly, 28000 illegal electricity connections have been disconnected after registering of cases against 10,000 during more than 17000 raids in various areas of the province.

The head of the provincial taskforce, Additional Chief Secretary Interior Abid Majeed, expressed his satisfaction with the measures taken for the recovery of dues and the prevention of electricity theft in Mardan district and congratulated the taskforce for declaring Mardan city as a load-shedding free city, saying on the instructions of the Chief Secretary, work has been initiated on making Peshawar district a load-shedding free city.

He issued necessary instructions to achieve the set target by forming teams to Peshawar chief and police officials along with the commissioner. The task force chief directed Pesco chief to intensify the drive against power theft in illegal housing societies and industrial areas.

He urged all the officers of the task force to speed up operations against the influential mafia without any fear to remove the impression among the public that operations are only conducted against poor electricity consumers.

He paid tribute to all the stakeholders on the provincial task force for their excellent performance and coordination on the national issue.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2023