PESHAWAR, May 14: The Water and Power Development Authority has recovered Rs1.081 billion arrears from the NWFP’s net hydel profit account through book adjustment, sources told Dawn.

The move has come as a blow to the cash-strapped province which is already locked in a row with the authority over the issue of irregular payment of net hydel profit and Wapda’s silence over the Frontier’s claim that Rs298 billion arrears were outstanding against the power authority under the head of hydel profit.

Wapda has recently informed the province of at-source deduction of Rs1.081 billion from the NWFP’s net hydel profit account.

The sources said the authority had adjusted the amount against the electricity arrears payable by the provincial government’s departments, autonomous bodies and local body institutions.

The provincial government officials said deduction through book adjustment was not only a violation of directions issued by the president and the prime minister, it was also in contravention to the recommendations of the NFC award.

The 1996 NFC award, in its recommendations, had recommended an end to the recovery of electricity arrears from the federating units through at-source deduction on the part of Wapda.

Similarly, according to the official sources, President Gen Pervez Musharraf had directed Wapda not to recover arrears through at-source deduction.

They said Wapda had informed the province that an amount of Rs3 billion had been released as its net hydel profit share for the current financial year following a book adjustment of Rs1.081 billion.

This is the second time since the start of net hydel profit payments to the NWFP in early 1990s that electricity arrears payable by the government departments and the local body institutions have been recovered through at-source deduction from the province’s net hydel profit account.

In the last financial year, Wapda had deducted at-source Rs710 million from the net hydel profit account.

The sources said the provincial government had strongly objected to the Wapda’s “arbitrary” move during a recent meeting between NWFP Chief Minister Akram Khan Durrani and Federal Minister for Water and Power Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao.

The provincial government had been assured by Wapda that with the release of Rs3 billion net hydel profit share, the remaining half of the Rs6 billion annual share on account of net hydel profit would be released during the last two months of the current fiscal year.

As per the payment plan agreed with the provincial government, Wapda would pay Rs1 billion in May and Rs2 billion in June 2003, completing the release of Rs6 billion amount to the province — the capped share amount of net hydel profit the NWFP has been receiving every year for the last ten years.

Chief executive of the Peshawar Electric Supply Company (Pesco) — a subsidiary of Wapda — in a recent press conference had stated that electricity arrears payable by the departments and local body institutions of the NWFP would be recovered through at-source deduction if the same were not paid by the defaulting consumers on their own shortly.

The sources said Wapda resorted to at-source deduction in line with a decision taken at a high-level meeting held recently at the ministry for water and power.

The latest at-source deduction of Rs1.081 billion appeared to be the second during the 2002-03 financial year after Wapda made book adjustment of Rs89 million in the first quarter of the current fiscal year to recover electricity arrears payable by the local government institutions.