Parliamentary body mulls help of ‘fatwa’ to curb power theft

ISLAMABAD: Agitated over unrelenting power theft across the country, a parliamentary body has come up with a novel idea to get religious decrees (fatwas) issued against the menace so people could stop indulging in such practices.

The ‘out of the blue’ proposal was mooted by a sub-committee of the Standing Committee on Power with Senator Nauman Wazir Khattak in the chair. The committee said it would be helpful to sensitize people about power theft through religious decrees with a warning of consequences of the crime in the life and the hereafter, according to the report.

During their briefing, Power Division officials told the committee members that distribution companies (Discos) were suffering losses of about 17 percent due to electricity theft.

They said the highest losses were incurred by Peshawar Electric Supply Company (Pesco) with 37.4pc, Sukkur Electric Supply Company (Sepco) with 36.5pc and at Hyderabad Electric Supply Company these losses are 30.1pc.

It was also briefed during the meeting that theft and technical cost the government Rs 56 billion between July 2017 and May 2018.