September 6, 2003	Saturday	Rajab 8, 1424

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ISLAMABAD, Sept 5: Wapda has to recover outstanding arrears of Rs43.9 billion from over 1.5 million defaulters in the country, the National Assembly was told here Friday.

Water and Power Minister Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao in a written reply to a question of Shabir Ahmed Khan said that out of 1,547,124 defaulters, 638,706 were from Punjab who have to pay outstanding dues of Rs3.9 billion while 353,116 defaulters from Sindh have to pay arrears of Rs5.3 billion. Likewise, 460,375 defaulters from the NWFP have to pay Rs32.7 billion and 94,927 defaulters from Balochistan have to pay Rs1.9 billion.

The minister said that during 2002, Wapda had to suffer line losses of 2,310 MKwh in nine big cities of the country, Hyderabad being the highest loser where 33 per cent units were lost (317 MKwh units lost out of 958.25 MKwh received but only 641.14 MKwh could be billed to the consumers).

The percentage of loss in Lahore is 16.4 per cent, Faisalabad 8.7 per cent, Islamabad 8.2 per cent, Rawalpindi 14.6 per cent, Multan 13.9 per cent, Peshawar 25.6 per cent, Hyderabad 33.1 per cent, Sukker 31.5 per cent and Quetta 28.3 per cent.

The minister however assured the house that efforts were under way to reduce technical as well as administrative losses but said that line losses were on a higher side in some cities due to inadequate investment for upgradation of distribution system on account of financial constraints in Wapda.

The prevailing law and order position is also one of the causes of high line losses, he added.

He said that old defective meters were being replaced, capacitors were being installed, line distribution system was being renovated and rehabilitated to rectify the situation. Similarly, over-loaded and lengthy feeders were being bifurcated.

Other steps to put things right were: replacement of deteriorated under-size conductors with appropriate size, addition of new grid stations, conversion of lengthy service cables into LT lines and lengthy LT lines into 11 kV lines, surveillance and checking of connections, combing of high line losses feeders and improvement in metering and quality of meters.

Mr Sherpao said the government was considering setting up Kohala Hydro Electric Power Project. However, there were a number of issues which needed to be resolved between the government of AJK, Wapda and the sponsors. The projected cost of the project was $1.4 billion and the expected generating capacity was 590 MW.

The amount of tax collected by Wapda through electricity bills during 2002-03 and paid to the government amounted to Rs30.2 billion, the minister said. Of this, Rs25 billion was paid as GST (general sales tax), Rs3.4 billion as withholding tax and Rs1.7 billion as electricity duty.

During the period 2002-03, 2246 villages in the four provinces were provided electricity, he said.

Replying to another question, the minister said the total allocation under the Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) 2003-04 for the construction of six dams amounted to Rs5.3 billion.

The allocations in the PSDP (2003-04) for Gomal Zam dam project (D.I. Khan) is Rs800 million, Mirani dam project (Turbat/Balochistan) Rs800 million, Sabakzai dam project (Zhob/Balochistan) Rs500 million, Satpara dam project (Skardu) Rs200 million, Raising of Mangla Dam project (Mangla/AJK) Rs3 billion and Kurram Tangi dam (North Waziristan Agency) Rs10 million.