The Lahore Electric Supply Company (LESCO) is playing a game of cutting and restoring electricity of government departments nowadays. On Saturday, the game continued, as LESCO disconnected electricity of two police stations but only after a few hours restored it. Citizens strongly criticised LESCO’s double standards saying if that any citizen did not pay his bill for two months then electricity is disconnected instantly but if a government department defaults, no action is taken.
LESCO disconnected electricity of Islampura and Anarkali police stations due to outstanding dues of Rs 0.5 million and 1.3 million respectively. But electricity was restored after a few hours after assurance of station house officers (SHO) of these police stations. But no surety was taken from the SHOs that when they will pay the bill, an official said adding that LESCO is helpless in recovering outstanding dues from government offices in general and from the police department in particular.
At the same time, LESCO disconnected 765 connections of common people in Prem Nagar, Syedpura, Islampura and Samanabad. LESCO also claimed to have recovered Rs 2.4 million from the public health division. Similarly, a couple of days ago, LESCO disconnected electricity of District Jail, Ferozepur Road for being a defaulter of Rs 40 million but restored power after assurance by the jail administration.
According to LESCO rules, if a citizen did not pay the electricity bill for two months continuously then electricity would be disconnected. But this practice is not followed for government departments and ‘powerful’ people such as policemen, lawyers etc, linesman Ghulam Nabi said, who was beaten by assistants of a lawyer in Pattoki only for disconnecting electricity due to non-payment of bill. Citizens said that there is clear discrimination in disconnecting electricity of government offices and the common man.
“My two months electricity bill got late due to some financial reasons and LESCO did not give me any margin and disconnected electricity,” citizen Laeeq Ahmed said adding that at the same time, if any government office defaults, then no action is taken. Another citizen Aziz Nadeem also shared similar views. The LESCO spokesman said that the drive against defaulters is continuing successfully and will continue
