Unpaid bills: IESCO cuts power for govt departments

ISLAMABAD:

Several offices of the Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) Administration, the Islamabad Police, and the Capital Development Authority (CDA) on Thursday went dark over their failure to pay their electricity bills.

The Islamabad Electric Supply Company (IESCO) has suspended supply to the offices of the deputy commissioner and the Islamabad SSP, while several offices of the capital’s civic agency, including its headquarters, and others running under the ICT Administration were disconnected.

“Outstanding dues against the CDA are over Rs1.7 billion,” said an IESCO spokesperson.

He said electricity was also suspended for the office of the Islamabad chief commissioner, but was restored after the city administration paid the outstanding amount of Rs190,000. The spokesperson said power supply was still suspended at other offices.

IESCO has to recover pending electricity bills amounting over Rs35 billion from some 58,000 defaulters, which include government and semi-government departments, besides individuals.

In some cases, outstanding amounts have been pending for the last 10 years.

In the recent past, IESCO disconnected power connections of nearly 15,000 defaulters, but most of them were private parties and the pending amounts were as low as Rs10,000.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 19^th, 2016.