December 14, 2001	Friday	Ramazan 28, 1422

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PESHAWAR, Dec 13: The Pakistani authorities recently detected an illegal power supply line running through Torkham to Afghanistan’s border areas.

The line was installed by the local tribesmen who were doing businesses illegally with the Afghans across the Torkham border town.

Afghanistan’s border areas adjoining Khyber agency, Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata), have been using electricity illegally for 11 years without paying any money to Wapda, official sources told Dawn here on Thursday.

“The illegal power distribution line, supplying power to border areas inside Afghanistan since early 1990s, was recently detected and disconnected,” claimed Brig Khalid Khan, the chief executive of Peshawar Electricity Supply Company (Pesco).

But, it had to be restored a few months back on the instructions of Islamabad after the move evoked sharp reaction from the Taliban militia.

“Although Taliban are no more there, electricity supply is still on to Afghanistan to ensure power supply to a hospital, run on humanitarian basis by an international agency, in areas close to Pakistani border,” said Brig Khalid.

But, the international agency, said the official sources, were not ready to pay the cost of electricity.

Out of total 11,200 transfers installed in Fata, over 3,240 are illegally installed by the tribesmen.

Whereas in the presence of some 171,000 legal - domestic and commercial -  connections duly registered with Pesco there are some 85,0000 connections which have been obtained by tribesmen illegally, directly from the power distribution system inside Fata.

“ Neither they [tribesmen] earlier paid marginal flat rate nor they are paying the recently fixed Rs1.97 per unit charges, “ said the official sources.

The sources said that out of the total 215 million power units, on the average every month, the power utility could hardly recover Rs16.7  million which makes just 3.1 per cent of the total cost of the electricity supplied to Fata every month.