After being informed that even the federal government departments, including defence services were not clearing their outstanding electricity dues of Rs 6.4 billion, the National Assembly Standing Committee on Water and Power on Wednesday recommended giving a 30-day ultimatum to all departments to clear their outstanding dues or face disconnection.
The Ministry of Water and Power (MOWP) had informed the committee that the receivables of various federal departments had increased to Rs 6.4 billion up to October 10, 2011 from a previous amount of Rs 6.1 billion on June 30, 2011. In a shocking revelation, MOWP said defence services were the top defaulters with dues of Rs 1.6 billion on October 10 even after reducing their dues of Rs 2.3 billion on June 30. The federal government ministries have arrears of Rs 1.6 billion on October 10 as against receivables of Rs 1.1 billion on June 30. The local government departments and autonomous bodies had arrears of Rs 1.9 billion and Rs 1.1 billion respectively on October 10 as compared to dues of Rs 1.6 billion and Rs 1.03 billion respectively on June 30.
The meeting was chaired by Mustafa Shah. PML-N’s Abid Sher Ali expressed his shock over the amount owed by defence services. PPP parliamentarian’s Ijaz Virk said Faisalabad Police illegally detained FESCO employees for 18 hours. He asked how could the power employees dare to cut power supply to the ISI. However, a PEPCO official clarified that the payables against ISI were not “arrears”, but “receivables” as they were by and large regular in payment of their bills.
PPP’s Nawab Abdul Ghani Talpur said the committee should help in the timely recovery of dues. He proposed that MOWP should give ultimatum for clearance of dues to all federal government departments. PML-N’s Bilal Yasin said the recently imposed monthly fuel adjustment charges were matching the electricity charges, and that the common man was hit hard. KESC Director Abdul Rauf said that their total receivables were Rs 24 billion out of which Rs 15.6 billion were against Karachi Water and Sewerage Board and Rs 5 billion against the City District Government, Karachi.
