The Lahore Electric Supply Company (Lesco) has banned the facility of installments on commercial and industrial bills while the domestic consumers would only be allowed installments up to 31st of August, said the sources.
Installments of domestic bills have been restricted to two bills and the payment of July bills are mandatory before the conclusion of the month of August, sources added.
Sources said the Chief Executive Officer Lesco, Mujahid Pervaiz Chatta has instructed disconnection on non-payment of bills to expedite recovery campaign. It may be noted that the recovery of pending bills has been a big issue for all the distribution companies, including the Lesco and various measures have been taken from time to time to improve the situation.
The power division has set a target to recover Rs 8000m from old receivables for the distribution companies (Discos) while freezing the receivable figures as they stood on Oct 31 last year. Already, the power sector has achieved in its revenues a record increase of over Rs 121 billion while curtailing line losses worth Rs 16 billion, or 1.4 percent.
The government's in October last year launched an anti-power theft campaign under which smart meters were introduced and a record 23,049MW electricity was distributed through improved transmission network.
A sum of Rs 1.3 billion was recovered from 5,318 power thieves after registering 36,000 first information reports (FIRs) against them under the anti-power pilferage campaign. The Discos were also given a target of recovering Rs 8 billion from old receivables while freezing the receivable figures (as they stood on October 31st last year).
The incumbent government, under the leadership of Prime Minister Imran Khan, launched a number of initiatives to reform the power sector, besides making it self-sustaining.