PESHAWAR, Sept 8: The provincial government has directed the district governments to clear their dues payable to the Water and Power Development Authority (Wapda) after reconciling their accounts with the Authority, official sources said.

The instructions to the district governments were issued following a series of meetings held recently at the provincial level to sort out the contentious issue of non-payment of power dues by defaulting district governments and departments of the provincial government.

The sources said the provincial authorities had decided that district governments would experience at source deduction from their receivables from the province if Wapda adjusted their arrears against the funds transferred to Peshawar.

In July, last, said the sources, province cleared a total of Rs230 million arrears to Wapda on behalf of the district governments and Rs50 million on behalf of the irrigation department, NWFP. Later, the amount was recovered from the concerned district governments’ funds.

“Instructions have been issued to the district governments to clear their dues, otherwise, the province would resort to at source deduction from their accounts if Wapda made it to pay their arrears,” said an official.

The provincial government, said the official, was of the view that district governments should resolve their disputes with Wapda directly by reconciling their accounts so that the provincial kitty did not experience squeeze as a result of at source deduction by the Authority.

Last year, Wapda had deducted at source over Rs1 billion from the amount payable to the NWFP government, though later the same amount was paid to Peshawar after much hue and cry by the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal government.

The provincial government had also adopted the same policy during the last financial year, however, later it had to give up before the agitating district governments who had resorted to protest after the province made at source deduction from their accounts.