In its campaign to improve recovery and reduce line losses, the Gujranwala Electric Power Company (GEPCO) recovered Rs 120 million as the cost of about 7 million units of stolen electricity from thieves in its region during past two months. GEPCO spokesman told Business Recorder that GEPCO task force conducted 4542 raids against the thieves, caught 1432 accused and registered cases against 1169 culprits and issued detection bills of Rs 120 million against 7 million units of electricity during this period.

It is worth mentioning here that GEPCO encompasses the areas of Gujranwala, Hafizabad, Sialkot, Narowal, Gujrat and Mandi Bahauddin districts with over 3 million electricity connections and average monthly collection of approximately Rs 10 billion.

The spokesman said the task force and surveillance teams in their joint operation unearthed 311 illegal connections in city circle, 337 in Cantonment circle, 335 connections in Gujrat circle, 221 in Sialkot circle, and 188 in Narowal circle, The teams also found some of GEPCO employees involved in electricity theft.

GEPCO CEO Mohsin Raza Khan held a meeting with chief engineer and senior field officers of the DISCO at GEPCO headquarter on Tuesday and advised them to pursue cases in the courts so that electricity thieves were put behind the bar as early as possible for total elimination of this chronic menace.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2019