Latest statement of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on the menace of power theft and the directions he issued to tackle the problem on a sustainable basis is a clear in-dication that the government is on the right path as far as improvement of conditions of the power sector are concerned. During a briefing in Islamabad on Thursday, he said the country cannot afford electricity theft at a large scale amid the precarious and appalling economic situation, stressing to immediately make the strategy for upgrada-tion of transmission lines and reduction in line losses on a sustainable basis. The Prime Minister asked the chief secretaries of all the provinces and their IGs to help Discos in the anti-electricity theft drive so that the power sector could be made viable and wanted introduction of technology to wipe out power theft.
Power theft is a decades-old challenge and failure of the successive governments to address it satisfactorily conveys an impression of known thieves more powerful than the state. Power theft cannot take place without active connivance of the area officials of Discos but unfortunately instead of taking disciplinary action against these officials and legal proceedings against using electricity illegally, the authorities have been re-sorting to window-dressing. The Premier also directed to appoint monitors on the loss-making feeders along with the direction of less load-shedding in areas where losses are well contained. But the strategy of carrying out load-shedding of longer du-ration in areas of major theft and losses has served no purpose other than penalizing honest consumers in these areas. We have been emphasizing in these columns that there is an issue of wrong and misguided priorities as is evident from the fact that in-stead of initiating anti-theft measures and related technology in theft-prone areas, new meters and ABCs (properly insulated wire) are introduced in efficient discos, prolong-ing the theft phenomenon. Similarly, it is quite obvious that mainly anti-social ele-ments are involved in power theft and the staff of the discos find it difficult to take a stern action against them without the necessary backing of the local administration and police. The directive of the Prime Minister to provincial IGPs to extend coopera-tion in this regard is a step in the right direction. In fact, there is an urgent need to hand over discos to the respective provinces, which have the necessary machinery to enforce the writ of the state. While implementing directions of the Prime Minister about upgradation of transmission and distribution systems, we hope, it would be en-sured that the new system not only encompasses anti-theft features but is capable enough to sustain increasing load. No doubt, implementation of the modernization programme would require huge funding but it is worth making as people of Pakistan cannot afford unbridled tariffs for an indefinite period. The policy of sparing thieves at the cost of honest consumers is at the heart of the problems in the power sector and needs to be revised immediately.
