ARY News’s Team Sar-e-Aam helped citizens of Nathoki village in Lahore to get their electricity supply back after a week-long disruption by LESCO.
According to reports, LESCO disconnected power to the entire village last week due to widespread electricity theft and non-payment of bills, bringing daily life to a standstill.
Residents of the suburban area came out in protest against unannounced load-shedding and excessive electricity bills, chanting slogans against the authorities. Police later registered cases against several demonstrators.
In Nathoki, residents were enduring severe hardship without both electricity and water for a week. The ARY News program Sar-e-Aam visited the village to document the community’s struggles.
Locals told the team that neighboring villages, including Baseem, enjoy uninterrupted power supply because a provincial minister, Sohail Shaukat Butt, resides there. They also complained that 80% of the residents regularly pay their bills, yet the entire village’s electricity was cut off — which they called a clear injustice.
LESCO officials, after hearing the villagers’ concerns, invited the Sar-e-Aam team to their office to present their side of the story. Officials revealed that electricity supplied through the local transformer was suffering 60% losses due to theft, while most consumers among the remaining 40% owed hundreds of thousands of rupees in unpaid bills.
They claimed that only 1–2% of the area’s residents regularly pay their dues, while the rest are involved in power theft. Following the Sar-e-Aam team’s mediation and assurances of compliance from locals, LESCO restored power to the area under specific conditions.
Link of complete program
