Leghari warns Discos against arbitrary billing

Energy Minister Sardar Awais Ahmad Khan Leghari has directed electricity distribution companies to stop issuing excessive or unsupported detection bills, Dawn reported on October 24. The orders were given at a Friday meeting with Discos’ boards, as the government seeks to curb power theft without penalising consumers unfairly. Detection bills are used to collect amounts attributed to slow meters, theft or other technical causes.

Under the framework, these bills must be generated through the Power Information Technology Company’s online portal, while manual billing by field staff is prohibited and could lead to disciplinary action. Proposed changes to the Consumer Service Manual would set timelines for replacing faulty meters, limit average billing to two months and restrict adjustments for fast or slow meters to the prior two billing cycles. The proposed recovery period for illegal electricity use by general consumers is three billing cycles.