LAHORE: The Lahore Electric Supply Company (LESCO) detected a total of 421 more connections from where the power consumers were pilfering electricity in all its circles of five districts — Lahore, Sheikhupura, Nankana Sahib, Kasur and Okara — on the 28th day of the anti-power theft campaign.
A LESCO spokesman told the media here on Thursday that the company had so far submitted FIR applications against 419 electricity thieves, out of which 243 cases were registered in respective police stations, while 58 accused were arrested.
The anti-power theft operations against electricity thieves are being conducted on the directives of the Federal Power Division and LESCO Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Engineer Shahid Haider is supervising these operations. The LESCO chief vowed that the operations would continue without discrimination until the complete end of electricity theft. The electricity pilferers as well as the LESCO officers and employees who facilitate them are also being brought to justice.
The spokesman said that large agricultural and commercial consumers were also found involved in electricity theft and all of them were also disconnected and charged with detection units. Among the seized connections were two industrial, 17 commercial, four agricultural and 398 domestic, and all these connections were disconnected and charged with a total of 674,976 unitsas detection bill amounting to Rs 36.393 million.
He explained that LESCO charged Rs 1.002 millions detection bill against 17,520 units to an electricity pilferer in Naveed Park area of Badami Bagh, Rs 700,000 fine in the form of detection bill against 9,500 units to another customer stealing electricity in Ferozwala area, Rs 630,982 detection bill against 14,674 units to a power thief in Ismailpura area of Lahore, and Rs 520,500 as detection bill against to an electricity thief in Baddoke.
During the 28 days of grand anti-theft campaign, the spokesman mentioned, the LESCO detected pilferage on 13,057 power connections and submitted 12,953 FIR applications against electricity thieves in the relevant police stations out of which 12,204 FIRs have been registered, while 4,491 accused have so far been arrested by the police. The LESCO has so far charged a total of 27,201,516 detection units worth Rs 1.229 billion to all the power pilferers.