LAHORE: The caretaker Punjab government, on Wednesday, issued instructions to commissioners and regional police officers (RPOs) to launch a crackdown on electricity thieves. The instructions were issued by Chief Secretary Punjab Zahid Akhtar Zaman during a videolink meeting held at the Civil Secretariat on Wednesday. The additional chief secretary (Home), secretaries of industries, energy department, Additional IG Special Branch attended the meeting while commissioners, RPOs and heads of Power Distribution Companies participated through videolink. The meeting decided to take stern action against those government employees and officers patronizing electricity theft and to improve the prosecution procedure after registration of FIR against power thieves.
The chief secretary said that prevention of electricity theft was a national cause. He said that the burden of electricity theft has to be borne by the common consumer, and urged the citizens to support the government in the national campaign against electricity theft. He said that electricity thieves were causing direct damage to the national treasury, adding that it was necessary to punish such elements.
The chief secretary said that according to the data, the line losses were the highest in the areas managed by Lesco and Mepco in Punjab. He said that the administration and police would provide full support in the operation against electricity theft while a committee would be constituted at the province level for monitoring.
The chief secretary also assigned the monitoring duties to the Special Branch to detect electricity theft in industrial units.