LAHORE:
Minister of State for Water and Power, Abid Sher Ali said on Monday that there would be no load-shedding of electricity in Sahar and Iftar times during the Holy month of Ramadan.
Briefing media at Lahore Electric Supply Company (LESCO) Head Office, he said the load-shedding schedule of six hours in cities and eight hours in rural areas would remain intact. The present government, he added, would fulfill its promise of ending load-shedding within the given time.
The Minister of State said that not a single penney had been spent on maintenance of transmission lines during last 12 years that resulted in increased line losses.
He said that 1700 MW more electricity would be added into the main system by end of this year and it would help substantially overcoming the power crisis.
He said that LESCO has 500 additional transformers to cope with any emergency situation and also appreciated the LESCO Chief Qaisar Zaman for his efforts to improve dues recovery; to mitigate line losses and curb electricity theft.
Abid Sher Ali said, the LESCO is introducing a new system of billing to overcome over-billing complaints, under which the consumers would receive an SMS of meter reading before two to three days of issuing the bills. This system would not only help single out the corrupt meter readers but also a source of relief to the consumers.
The Minister of State said that on the direction of Prime Minister Muhammad Nawaz Sharif, monitoring teams of distribution companies including the LESCO would remain active to ensure maximum relief to the electricity consumers.
He, however, made it clear that consumers not paying the electricity bills would not be supplied electricity at any cost.
On this occasion, the LESCO CEO Qaisar Zaman said that LESCO’s recovery ratio is 97 percent; line losses reduced to 12.5 percent that also include 1.5 percent transmission lines losses.
