Spy agencies to aid DISCOs in bills recovery

ISLAMABAD:

In an interesting development, the PML-N led federal government has decided to form special units to help and support power distribution companies (DISCOs) in recovering electricity dues.

These Support Units comprising officers of intelligence agencies like the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and the Military Intelligence (MI) will be led by the chief executive officer of the relevant DISCO while the sector commander of a civil armed force will be its co-director.

These DISCOs Support Units will work directly under the Power Division secretary. According to sources, the Power Division has sent the summary for formation of these units to the Cabinet Committee for Energy. The committee is likely to approve the summary today (Tuesday).

In the first phase, the DISCO Support Unit will be established by the Multan Electric Power Company (Mepco). Such units will be set up in other cities as well if the unit at Mepco proved a success.

The power sector faces a severe crisis as DISCOS have failed to recover Rs1,780 billion in dues.

Recovery of power bills is a major challenge for the national economy which suffers a loss of over Rs49 billion every month on account of electricity theft.

According to a report published in The Express Tribune on September 8, 2023, 100% consumers in four districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (K-P)—Bannu, DI Khan, Tank, and Shangla—were not paying any electricity bill while around 90% people in Pasni, Gwadar, Makran, Khuzdar, and Lorelai districts of Balochistan got electricity through illegal connections.

The rate of bill collection had reduced by 5% to 6% in Hyderabad division of Sindh and 9% in Tando Allahyar. Fifteen percent of consumers used illegal connections in Tando Muhammad Khan; 21% in Shaheed Benazirabad; 60% in Larkana, and 40% in Sukkur.

During the course of one year, DISCOs purchased 116.5 billion units of electricity. They sold 97.34 billion units to consumers while 19.17 billion units were either stolen or lost due to technical deficiencies.

In this regard, Peshawar Electric Supply Company (Pesco) suffered the greatest losses as its 5.7 billion units worth Rs77 billion were stolen in one year.