PESHAWAR, April 10: The provincial government has instructed officials concerned to identify public sector employees who are making the public exchequer bear electricity bills of their official residences , officials said here on Friday.

They said that several employees of the provincial government have not personally been paying their monthly electricity bills, causing considerable financial losses to the provincial government.

An official said that the NWFP government's recently-established 'Wapda cell' would rectify the situation, ensuring that electricity bills of the public sector employees' official residences were no more paid from the provincial kitty.

The provincial government, they said, had recently come to know that electricity bills were not being issued in the names of government employees occupying official residences, instead bills of their residential connections were issued against the code number(s) allotted to various provincial departments.

Officials said that the provincial government, in an effort to put an end to the practice, had recently instructed all district coordination officers (DCOs) to provide the particulars of residences allotted to the public sector employees besides the details of electricity connections installed at official residences in their respective areas.

Another official said that DCOs of all the 24 district governments had recently been asked to provide details in this regard, enabling the provincial government to take appropriate measures to put an end to the illegal practice.

Sources said that the NWFP government's 'Wapda cell' intended to forward details of electricity connections installed at official residences with a request that official codes - allotted to public sector electricity consumers - be removed from the monthly bills issued to them [official residences].

The government had identified the problem during the course of reconciliation of accounts between the district governments and the Peshawar Electric Supply Company (Pesco) - a Wapda subsidiary.

Officials told this correspondent that while it was difficult to ascertain the exact number of officials involved in the illegal practice, it was believed that the number would be quite high.

Officials said that the provincial government had a total of more than 22,000 electricity connections across the province and its total monthly electricity bills stood between Rs300 million and Rs400 million.

"The move to end illegal practice would require an in-depth inquiry to find out how many of the public sector employees are making the public exchequer to bear the burden of electricity charges of their official residences," said an official.