- Over 600 poor Christian families of F-6/2 Kachi Abadi living without electricity despite paying bills
- Residents say committee formed by J Salik embezzled electricity dues that they had been paying to it for further payment to IESCO
Owing to alleged corruption and malpractices of WAPDA officials and a committee consisting of local residents, over 600 families of F-6/2 Kachi Abadi are living without electricity for the last eight months despite having paid their bills.
According to the details, WAPDA installed a ‘combined electricity meter’ for residents of F-6/2 Kachi Abadi on February 22, 2001. The meter was installed on the name of Sardar Kushmala.
Initially, when WAPDA used to send the collective bill, a committee formed by the residents distributed it and received the amount from the consumers and deposited it. Later, the committee started collecting extra bills from the residents.
The committee, with the alleged connivance of WAPDA officials, had been collecting up to Rs. 5000 per home each month and still not depositing the bill with WAPDA. Subsequently, the increase in arrears led IESCO to disconnect the electricity in October 2014.
When the consumers raised hue and cry, they found out that the electricity was disconnected because the bill had reached Rs 5,615,601.
A resident of F-6/2 Kachi Abadi and the President of Morning Star Welfare Society Karamat Masih Hero said that the 21-member committee headed by former federal minister Julius Salik had been involved in the embezzlement of the electricity dues.
He said that the committee has misappropriated millions of rupees but poor people of Katchi Abadi were being punished for their crime. He added that over 600 poor families were living without electricity for the past eight months.
He further said that children were unable to study and go to school due to unavailability of electricity. Yet, no one was willing to recover the amount and deposit it with the national exchequer.
Despite several attempts for getting his reply, J. Salik was not available. The residents have appealed the authorities concerned to take immediate notice of the matter, recover the amount from the committee, and restore the electricity urgently. They also demanded that they may be given separate meters so that no such incident could occur in future.
