In an innovative proposal, a sub-committee of the Senate Standing Committee on Power suggested on Friday to incentivise mosque administrations to issue fatwas (religious decrees) against pilferers.
The committee proposed that the mosques who issued such fatwas should be waived of any charges for the first 400 units of electricity consumed at their premises.
The fatwas should highlight the repercussions of stealing electricity, according to the recommendations put forth in the proposal. The sub-committee observed in its recommendation that in the last six months alone, the national exchequer had incurred a loss of Rs40 billion due to power theft. The loss was owed to the supply of power to feeders where 80 per cent of the power was unaccounted. The Senate sub-committee said that a federal subsidy through Zakat or funds of the Benazir Income Support Programme must be provided for such feeders.
The committee also observed that load shedding had to be done on an equitable basis ‘as directed by the Chief Justice in a suo motu case’, and recommended that Pakistan Electric Power Company (Pepco) should evaluate the cost of provision of two free hours electricity on feeder having theft/loss of more than 80 per cent as well as the savings incurred by suspending supply for the remaining 22 hours in a 24-hour cycle.
Published in Daily Times, August 11th 2018.
