HYDERABAD, Dec 22: District governments and taluka municipal administrations are posing the main problem regarding clearance of Hesco bills on time with the result that bills have accumulated.

This was claimed by the Sindh government's consultant on KESC and Hesco affairs, Ejaz Nabi Abbasi, who began reconciliation of Hesco bills against provincial departments here on Wednesday.

The consultant arrived here under directives of the Sindh chief secretary to check power bills issued against government departments and other bodies like district governments and taluka municipal administrations. He will visit revenue offices of Hesco in Hyderabad to verify the bills and sort out the issue.

Meanwhile, Hesco's drive to recover arrears to the tune of Rs2,091.464 is continuing. The company's deputy director, commercial, Syed Khurshid Shah, said Rs338 million had been received from different departments and Rs400 million released by the finance department was yet to be received by Hesco.

He said Hesco had cut 218 power connections of defaulters in Sukkur circle, 180 in Larkana, 150 in Nawabshah and around 150 in Hyderabad. He made it clear that the arrears' issue had to be resolved in writing once and for all with the consultant appointed for the purpose.

The consultant said the Sindh government had cleared all liabilities of Rs1.3 billion till December 2001 against its 23,000 electricity connections and bills relating to January 2002 onwards were to be decided.

He blamed district governments and taluka municipal administrations for failing to clear their dues on their own although they were self-generating bodies. He said in 2002-2003, the government cleared dues of these bodies.

The consultant will also check whether decisions jointly taken by Hesco and the Sindh government were being implemented. As per the decisions, he claimed, Hesco was bound to give one month time for levy of late payment surcharge as was being done in the KESC.

He said it had also been decided that if new dues of May 2004 were paid before June 30, the surcharge would be waived off. He said Hesco had also been told that essential services should be spared during disconnection of power supply.