LESCO to overbill consumers to cover Rs9 billion deficit

The Lahore Electric Company (LESCO) has once again decided to overbill the electricity consumers to the tune of billions of rupees, reported 24NewsHD TV channel Wednesday.

According to sources, in this regard, the company tasked field officers to achieve line loss targets based on the last year.

LESCO will have to overbill at least 150 million units to achieve the set targets, sources said.

The overbilling of Rs9 billion will have to be done to achieve the set targets for July, sources added.

LESCO set a target of bringing down line losses from 12.9 percent to 11.9 percent.

The company recorded 12.9 percent line losses on overbilling of about one billion units last year.

It should be mentioned here that on the directives of Federal Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi, a crackdown was carried out to end over-billing.

The company's line losses hit 17.9 percent in June after the crackdown, the documents show.

This month, the company gave field officers a target of 11.9 percent line losses, sources said.

To achieve the set targets, the officers have to reduce line losses by six percent.

Reducing line losses by up to six percent can only be achieved by overbilling, LESCO sources said.

LESCO Chief Shahid Haider and Director Customer Services Sarwar Mughal started putting pressure on the officers in this regard, sources revealed.

The Superintending Engineers and XENs also started pressuring the SDOs to achieve the target.

Reporter: Shahid Sipra