A NATIONAL daily reported on Thursday that in the old city Dhaka including Shakharibazar, Kotwali Road and at some places of Patuatuly illegal electricity providers comprising DESA employees and local party men are offering a monthly package to households at a cost of Tk. 400. Some users are even receiving the same package at lower cost through bargain as every such money is going to those people, no matter at what cost to the nation. The illegal providers mainly linesman at each locality are running the brisk business and making overnight fortune while regular subscribers are making good of these loses paying monthly electricity bills at exorbitant rates. Illegal connection is not anything new; what appears new is the package on offer to bring unbridled corruption down to every doorstep. What appears strange is that despite disclosure of existence of such massive illegal electricity connection in the city and other places, the number is only on the rise to prompt people to raise question what the concerned authorities are doing to protect the system from being so severely robbed. It is not unknown to them that over 200MW electricity is stolen daily through illegal connections as the distribution agencies’ report claimed. But this pilferage remains largely unidentified and unplugged while the government is passing the loss on budgetary subsidies and at higher users’ rates. The report has quoted sources as saying that Rural Electrification Board (REB) and Power Development Board (PDB) have the largest number of illegal connection followed by Dhaka Power Distribution Company (DPDC) and Dhaka Electricity Supply Company Ltd. It is also not unknown that local syndicates backed by corrupt officials of Distribution Companies have their hands to develop and protect the illegal business as the source of their regular informal income. But their activities are sabotaging the nation’s efforts to provide electricity to all places and cut loses from the marketing network. The fact is that the government is well aware of the presence of those syndicates doing illegal business with illegal connection, but since party men and employees of its front organizations in power sector are engaged, it is not doing much to stop the syndicates. The offer of illegal package is unthinkable and also reprehensive which the government is tolerating as they are holding the system hostage and minting illegal money. There is no way the nation can accept such robberies and it must be stopped forthwith.
