ISLAMABAD: Secretary Power Division Rashid Langrial on Sunday said that an amount of Rs 46 billion has been recovered from the power pilferers from September 7 to October 31 during the ongoing anti-power theft campaign.
“Today as the results for the first two months (53 days to be exact) are out, I must put things in perspective. Our estimated annual losses across the national grid for the current year are Rs589 billion. Of total Rs589, roughly Rs199 billion come from ex-FTA, Balochistan tube-wells and AJK,” he revealed on a social media handle.
These areas are not the focus of this campaign because of their own peculiarities, he said and added that AJK collects its own bills but does not pay us at the same rate because it sees it as a contractually disputed payment; ex-FATA because they are exempted from meters due to a policy of appeasement in the wake of integration and Balochistan tube-wells on account of various factors, least of which is not the enforcement challenge.
He said, “We are working on the remaining problem space of Rs390 billion of which we are able to recover Rs46 billion in 53 days i.e. PKR 867 million per day. If the same level of state support and field effort can be maintained (and that is a big if, I must admit), 80 % of the problem space gets resolved”. The secretary said they were conscious of the challenge of sustaining the drive beyond the campaign but they have demonstrated beyond doubt that there was nothing that could not be resolved with the right mix of state’s will and field effort.
“That day, we promised that no one will be spared, high or mighty; sacred or not-so-sacred” he said. He went on to say that we have reshuffled, suspended, prosecuted even arrested our staff at a scale never seen before; put thieves behind bars at a rate never observed before i-e roughly 470 persons per day; have shunned extraneous influence with full support of the Prime Minister, the Minister-in Charge and other quadrants of state power.
In the process we have erred, learnt and corrected our course where needed, he said. He said officers and staff have suffered at the hands of the little mafias and they were thrashed, injured, made hostage and fired upon.
