ISLAMABAD, July 19: The Azad Jammu and Kashmir government has asked the federal government to supply electricity to it at domestic rates instead of the higher bulk tariff, and provide advance compensation to 40,000 expected displaced persons before it starts raising the height of the Mangla Dam.

The two issues of electricity rates and compensation were discussed here on Thursday at a meeting, presided over by the minister for Kashmir affairs, Abbas Sarfraz Khan, well-placed sources told Dawn on Friday.

The meeting was convened to prepare the agenda and working papers for another meeting to be held on July 22 between President Pervez Musharraf and AJK President Sardar Anwar Khan and Prime Minister Sardar Sikandar Hayat Khan.

An AJK delegation, led by Chief Secretary Naeem Khan, told the Kashmir affairs minister that it would no more pay the bulk tariff to the Water and Power Development Authority (Wapda) because majority of its consumers fell in the domestic category.

The chief secretary informed the meeting that AJK wanted to compensate those people, who were going to be displaced due to a proposed raise in the Mangla Dam’s height before the construction work was started.

The AJK government insists that the federal government should also provide compensation to those persons, who were displaced at the time of Manlga Dam construction three decades ago, but who have not yet been compensated.

Raising the Mangla Dam height is expected to cost Rs53 billion and will displace 40,000 residents.

The AJK government says that it will have no objection even if the jurisdiction of the Wapda Act 1958 is expanded to Azad Kashmir.

The government is also proposing setting up of another electricity company, like the eight distribution companies of Wapda operating in the four provinces, so that power tariff could be made uniform.

It believes that the bulk rates its consumers are being charged by Wapda are in violation of the 1971 agreement signed between the government of Pakistan and the government of Azad Jammu and Kashmir.

The AJK government has told authorities in Islamabad that any unilateral increase in the tariff by Wapda would not be acceptable. It has demanded that Wapda be warned against issuing disconnection notices to it unless cleared by the federal government.

Sources in the AJK government said that under the 1971 agreement, the AJK government was charging the rate at par with the same categories of consumers in the four provinces, which was around Rs1.90 per unit, because most of the consumers were of domestic category.

They added that Wapda was charging the AJK government the bulk tariff rates that were applicable to commercial housing societies and industrial zones amounting to around Rs3.24 per unit.

Of the Rs3.24 per unit, according to the sources, the federal government is receiving around Rs0.92 per unit as subsidy, while the AJK government is getting the remaining Rs2.32 per unit. The Kashmir government is charging its consumers around Rs1.90 per unit.

They said when individual consumer tariff across the country was already in vogue in the AJK, there was no justification for charging the government the bulk tariff. They demanded that for all practical purposes, the Azad Kashmir government be treated as equal.