These days instead of the Ministry of Hydro power, the Ministry of Interior which should have been busy with correcting internal issues has gone on a campaign to collect electricity bills.
The main reason being that electricity arrears have increased to such an extent that now there is no option but to take them back by force from the defaulters. Those who have defaulted claim that they are in this situation because of the additional units being sent to them and the new taxes.
While the increase in electricity rates every two months has also broken the back of the masses. If realized that default would not be so high if electricity was provided to the people and consumers at reasonable rates but the country’s leadership continued to take loans and its burden was due to taxes in electricity, gas, fuel and other areas.
The other important thing is that the government has always put pressure on the people to show their performance. Now that the government is once again in need of currency, instead of improving the performance of the relevant ministries it has abandoned the show of crackdown.
The pressure of which is also likely to be put more on the public and consumers. On the other hand, the Federation has shown the highest line losses in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and has given the impression that there is no possibility of electricity theft in the largest population of Punjab.
Therefore, the provincial government is also suspicious of it and this is not the first time but every time the provincial government demands net profit of electricity from the federation, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is declared as a power thief.
Then those institutions also come into action which have nothing to do with the civilian population but their job is to investigate. The work of another organization in the presence of WAPDA’s own police and other staff for recovery proves that the officials of these organizations are not fulfilling their duties.
It may be that the intention of the government is very good but if the work for which the institution has been created is done by it, then the institutions will be strengthened and the thieves found in them will also be exposed. If, on the contrary, every government will do that operation on a temporary basis then its purpose can only be to pass the time, which has caused a lot of damage to the country and is likely to happen in the future too. Recently, Federal Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi has given an order to intensify the crackdown to stop over-billing and electricity theft, which is a good thing but the question arises that for purpose the ministry of hydro power exists.
A meeting on over-billing and electricity theft was held in Lahore under the chairmanship of Federal Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi, in which the interior minister said that action should be continued without discrimination against the over-billing officers. He said that it is not acceptable to punish the citizens for the incompetence and negligence of the discos. Mohsen Naqvi directed the relevant authorities to continue the action against the power thieves while also taking action against the government staff involved in power theft.
On the other hand, the electricity distribution companies have requested to recover more than 51 billion from the consumers. Electricity distribution companies are requested to receive 31 billion 34 million rupees in terms of capacity charges, while 5 billion 57 million rupees have been requested in terms of operations and maintenance.
In this regard, Nepra will hold a further hearing on May 17. Here it is also important to hold the distribution companies accountable, how these arrears have increased to such an extent, were the officials of the distribution companies also involved? The Home Minister should also pay attention to this aspect.
