KARACHI, Nov 18: Every year the Pakistan Telecommunication Company (PTCL) fails to recover at least Rs200 million from defaulters, Dawn learnt here on Thursday.

Well-placed sources told Dawn that the PTCL employed the services of at least two private parties to recover outstanding dues from defaulters. These two private parties — one in the Southern Telecommunication Region II and the other in STR-III — were paid 10 per cent of the recovered amount.

They added that next year the amount of outstanding dues was likely to go up because the phone utility no longer had four subdivisional magistrates (referred to as special telephone magistrates in the telecom hierarchy) at its disposal. Previously, four Grade-17 SDMs, entrusted with the task of recovering outstanding dues from defaulters, worked in the PTCL on deputation. After the introduction of the local government system in the country, the SDMs had been withdrawn, the sources said.

Insiders told Dawn that in spite of these arrangements, the default amount had run up to Rs3 billion or thereabouts in both the STR-II and STR-II which constituted Karachi.

They added that every year the PTCL suffered a loss of around Rs300 million on account of default of payment by errant subscribers. The PTCL managed to recover Rs100 million every year. “But annually Rs200 million is added to the total default amount which will continue to rise steadily until the PTCL makes an effort to stem this trend,” they said.

Announcing an impressive after-tax profit of Rs18.15 million recently, the PTCL, in a self-congratulatory tone, disclosed: “Continuing to follow its conservative approach in accounting, the PTCL has made sizable provisions of Rs3.320 billion this year on account of doubtful debts, pension and other employee benefits.”

Well-placed sources told Dawn that those defaulters whose telephone connections had been disconnected on account of default of payment managed to get another telephone connection activated in some else’s name. They added that while the special telephone magistrates had formerly used their clout to get the defaulters to pay up, the private parties found out the other telephone numbers in the use of the defaulters. “The PTCL then disconnects the other telephone connections used by the defaulters in an attempt to make them pay their outstanding dues,” they said.

In this connection, the sources added, a website, www.one7.com, was also used by the PTCL to find out if an address on which a phone had been disconnected due to default of payment had another telephone connection or not.

Dawn has it on good authority that in the STR-II during July 2000-June 2001 18,570 cases of default had been detected. “The defaulters owed over Rs204 million to the PTCL. The phone utility managed to recover Rs45 million from 2,745 defaulters. At least Rs159 million remained unrecovered,” the sources said.