Peshawar: Consumers charged for electricity they never used Special

Peshawar - Residents of the University Road have received astonishingly high amounts in electricity bills from the Peshawar Electric Supply Company (PESCO), which is the government company supplying power to consumers in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

A resident named Zafar in Shaheen Town, Peshawar, was sent a bill of more than Rs. 4000 this nonth while his monthly electricity bill is usually less than 2000 rupees. This nearly shocked the man with a small earning and just average electricity consumption. Upon checking the electricity meter, it was found that PESCO had charged him for 500 plus units that he never used. His house’s electricity meter showed the reading of less than 39300 units while the PESCO bill included the reading of 39791 units, without checking the actual reading of the meter. Zafar had to take the bill to PESCO office to complain of the lapse and the office overwrote the bill amount by bringing it down to 2000 rupees. This was still not the correct amount as the actual reading in the meter is still below what was included as “previous” reading in the bill, according to which PESCO already had received more than what was due from the previous bill. But Zafar had to pay what was officially fixed for him. This has been the case of other residents of the same neighborhood who have been charged shockingly high amounts, some as high as 10 thousand rupees. One person, while paying his electricity bill at the United Bank along the main University Road, said sarcastically, “no big surprise; they usually do it in the month of July.”