LAHORE, Nov 2: Poor Wapda network killed 83 people during the first quarter of the current fiscal year.

According to the authority’s progress report for July-September, 35 of its employees died in accidents on duty. The death toll was 22 during the corresponding period last year.

As many as 48 civilians also died in accidents involving the Wapda network this year. Some 47 people, 37 Wapda men and 10 civilians, had non-fatal accidents.

Another dimension of Wapda’s distribution system is the number of trippings. During the July-September quarter, the number of minor trippings of less than 20 minutes each rose to 156,868, from 147,232 during the corresponding period last year. The number of major breakdowns, each of which lasted more than 20 minutes, increased from 15,737 to 20,185.

Transformers damaged during this period also caused a heavy loss to the authority. Some 2,617 were damaged against 2,054 during the corresponding quarter last year.

The collection of bills from the private and public sectors is also a big problem with the authority. During three months, the private consumer default, which the authority always denies, went up by Rs2.756 billion. The increase in public sector default was huge at Rs7.54 billion.

The authority started the current fiscal year with a total default of Rs58.18 billion, which by the end of September stood at Rs68.50 billion —- an increase of Rs10.31 billion. The authority could only collect 86 per cent of its bills during three months.

According to the progress report, line losses, as usual, remained high at over 26 per cent. With 2.1 per cent going to the auxiliaries head, transmission losses were recorded at 7.2 per cent and distribution losses at 16.9 per cent —- a total of 26.2 per cent.

The National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra) had asked Wapda to bring down line losses to 22.5 per cent during the year 2003-04. The authority had accepted the figure.

The authority has 4,892 applications for agriculture tubewells connections pending with it. Out of them, according to the report, some 1,491 cases are ripe for disposal and 3,401 are awaiting decisions. Detractors think that the authority has deliberately been dragging its feet on this front. A former member (power) of the authority says: “Wapda has to heavily subsidize tubewell connections. It receives little more than Rs3 per unit from them against its average sale price of Rs4.02 or over Rs7 for commercial connections. For this reason, it delays or avoids these connections. It is also because the authority has not received the amount of subsidy announced by the federal or the provincial government.”