PESHAWAR, Nov 27: A large number of purposely-built vehicles for Pesco provided by United States Agency for International Development (USAID) have been rusting as the vehicles couldn`t be utilised for the last one year, according to sources.

The USAID had provided 100 purposely-built rickshaws and 70 Ravi vans to Pesco to improve the supply of electricity to customers by enhancing the capacity of the line staff in 2015.

The provision of vehicles was part of the USAID programme of providing technical assistance as well as equipment and new technologies to Pesco including installing electricity meters and replacing transmission lines.

`Millions of US dollars have been spent on the project, which continued from 2011 to 2015. The Ravi vans could be seen in the field work while most of the rickshaws are getting rust at the subdivisional offices of Pesco,` said sources.

Several employees at different sub-divisional offices of Pescotold Dawn that they were provided with the vehicles but there was no arrangement of fuel and drivers.

`Who will drive the rickshaw as it needs a driver, who is not appointed by the Pesco for it, one of the employees said.

Sources said that seven rickshaws were parked at different corners of the Pesco City sub-division office.

The machinery and bodies of the rickshaws were getting damage for not using in one year, they said.

They added that the tyres of rickshaws were punctured while dust covered the bodies.

`Each rickshaw has the capacity to carry four to five persons along with their ladders, hot sticks, tools and equipment. The price of a single rickshaw is around Rs800,000,` said sources.

They said that in Peshawar city, some areas having congested streets were inaccessible to large vehicles so USAID provided rickshaws and Ravi vans.

Those purposely-built vehicles could easily move in the narrow and busy streets,they said.

`Currently the consumers are responsible to provide pick and drop facility to the Pesco employees for removing faults in the electricity transformers or transmission lines in the locality of the complainants,` said sources.

They added that all the employees had not the official vehicles rather only the line superintendents had the facility.Sources said that consultation about the selection of vehicle between officials of USAID and Pescohad taken aroundoneyear.

`The rickshaws are painted in dark orange colour with Pesco logos on both sides to avoid their personal use by high-ups of Pesco,` sources said.

Pesco has not maintained therecord of the whereabouts of the rickshaws. When this scribe asked the relevant section about the number of vehicles provided by USAID, the of ficials concerned said that they had no record as all the vehicles were provided directly to the sub-divisional offices.

Pesco spokesperson ShaukatAfzal, when contacted, said that the vehicles, which were in running condition, were being used by the employees whereas those, which were out of order, were not in use.

`How brand new vehicles have gone out of order without covering a single kilometer,` sources questioned.