PESHAWAR, April 15: The NWFP chief minister's secretariat and Governor House are among the public sector electricity consumers which have not paid million of rupees in dues to the Peshawar Electric Supply Company (Pesco) , sources told Dawn on Thursday.

Electricity arrears payable by Governor House stood at Rs 3.55 million on Feb 2, whereas, the Chief Minister's Secretariat owed Rs 1.8 million to Pesco by the same date. "Though the two entities have been provided sufficient funds to cater to their essential expenditures, they don't take payment of electricity bills seriously rendering them in default," said a responsible officer of the provincial government.

The sources said that Governor House and the secretariat were not the only defaulters. "There is a long list of departments, and their subordinate entities which owe millions of rupees in arrears to Pesco," said the official source.

The source said that the repeatedly issued instructions and warnings to the authorities all the departments, their attached wings and provincial public sector entities to pay their monthly electricity charges in time,to avoid piling up of arrears did not elicit the desired response.

Collectively these companies were in default of Rs 1.3 billion at the end of February, last. "Our repeated requests to the provincial government to clear the bills did not receive a positive response," said a senior officer of Pesco.

Apart from the secretariat and Governor House, other entities which have not paid their electricity dues include the provincial assembly, Peshawar High Court, various offices of the subordinate judiciary, public service commission and all departments of the provincial government.

The highest amount of arrears, in an individual case, is payable by the public health engineering department. Its arrears stood at over Rs413 million on Feb 29, last, followed by the irrigation department's Rs122 million, health department's Rs77 million, education department Rs 43 million, communication and works department Rs17 million.

Whereas, police owed Rs15 million, the abandoned offices of deputy commissioners involve electricity arrears of Rs13 million and buildings department of the provincial government Rs 18 million. The sources said Pesco dues and irregular payment of monthly electricity charges would form part of a high level meeting the chief secretary would preside over during the current week.