Pakistan’s Water and Power Minister Raja Pervaiz Ashraf has instructed the Pakistan Electric Power Company (PEPCO) and Chief Executive Officers of all distribution companies across the country to expedite recovery of over Rs 150 billion ($1.7 billion) arrears from defaulters “without any discrimination.”
He said that the government was taking measures to put the existing power generation capacity “on a war footing”, while at the same time, keeping the electricity tariff within affordable limits for the masses. He also said that the government had been paying huge subsidies despite the global financial crunch.
Shahid Rafi, Water and Power Secretary and Chairman of PEPCO, said that a special monitoring cell had been set up at the ministry to monitor PEPCO’s overall performance, and all CEOs had been directed to intensify the campaign for the recovery of arrears and constitute raiding teams at sub-division, division and circle level to “combat power theft with an iron hand.”