Mepco chiefwarns officers to mend ways

MULTAN: Multan Electric Power Company (Mepco) Chief Executive Officer M Akram Chaudhry has warned the field officers of dire consequences over their failure to improve performance and achieving the targets of Ministry of Water and Power.

Addressing the Superintendent Engineers’ conference here at the Mepco Headquarter on Monday, he said electricity connections of the defaulters should be removed forthwith and should not be restored until clearance of the defaulted amount.

The field staff is free to take all possible measures to ensure recoveries, he said. He said new electricity meters had been provided to all sub-divisions for new general connections, tube-well connections and replacement of defaulted meters. No leniency would be tolerated in this connection, he warned.

Engineer Akram Chaudhry said the Ministry of Water and Power was monitoring efficiency of all employees and stern action would be taken against negligent employees. In case of overbilling complaints are received, the concerned sub-division staffers would be removed from their service, he warned.

He said mobile phone numbers of each consumer should be gathered because the Mepco was going to introduce mobile application for consumers. The consumers would be able to access loadshedding schedule and feeders’ load on their cellular phones, he added.

Mepco General Manager Operations Sarfraz Ahmed Haraj, General Manager Technical Mehmood Ahmed Khan, Director HR and Admin Naeemullah, Director Finance Mian Ansar Mehmood, Chief Engineer Customer Services Khawaja Ghulam Yasin and other senior officials were present in the meeting.

DBA bans police entry to district courts: The district bar association (DBA) on Monday banned the entry of police officers to district courts against police’s reluctance to register a case against police’s violence. The lawyers also locked temporary jail rooms where the accused stay for a while before start of their trial in the court. Later, the DBA allowed police entry in the afternoon on intervention of the District and Sessions judge.

Talking to media men, DBA president Malik Mehboob Sandila said the Cantonment police had registered a case against lawyers on the fake charge of hurling threats. He said it was settled between the DBA and police that the latter would take DBA into confidence before registration of FIR against the lawyers. He said the judge promised for resolution of lawyers’ demands. He said if the DBA demands were not addressed properly, the lawyers would again stop entry of police to the district court premises.