More than 15,000 illegal tube wells operate throughout Balochistan right under the nose of the Quetta Electric Supply Company (QESCO), an official said.
Tube wells pump water and irrigate land in Quetta, Kalat, Killa Abdullah, Pishin, Khuzdar and other parts of the province, a QESCO official told the media.
The official said illegal tube wells remained the main cause of increasing dues of QESCO against the growers’ community. “Currently there are more than 100 billion rupees dues against agricultural consumers,” he said.
However, Malik Naseer Shahwani, a central leader of the Balochistan Growers Action Committee declared the allegation as baseless and termed it as being far from reality. “First of all QESCO should provide power supply and then speak about dues,” Shahwani said.
QESCO’s dues against the federal and provincial government departments, industrial, agricultural and domestic consumers stood at Rs115 billion until August 2014.
