Over-billing of over Rs80bn revealed in LESCO

Islamabad: Power Minister Sardar Awais Laghari revealed overbilling of more than Rs80 billion in Lahore Electric Supply Company (LESCO).

A meeting of the Senate Standing Committee on Energy was held under the chairmanship of Senator Mohsin Aziz, in which Federal Minister for Energy Awais Laghari briefed the committee. Senator Palwasha Khan raised the issue of overbilling.

During the meeting, Energy Minister Laghari revealed that there was more over-billing in LESCO than in the entire country, over-billing was being done to show less power theft and line losses, which has been fixed now.

On this, LESCO chief told the committee that they overbilled Rs80 billion, but returned the money. ‘We sent credits to the overbilling units in the bills and the money was adjusted in the next month's bills. LESCO no longer has overbilling’.

He stated that LESCO employees involved in electricity theft were dismissed, 127 employees have been terminated, 16 to 17 Sub-Divisional Officer (SDOs) have been dismissed for electricity theft.

During the meeting, Federal Minister Awais Leghari also revealed that the complaints of electricity consumers were not implemented.

He added that for complaints in distribution companies, electricity consumers call 118 and file complaints. Until I was a minister, I did not know about this number. The calls to this number used to receive data, but the complaints were not processed.