ISLAMABAD: Arrears of electricity bills against public sector have reached Rs173 billion, reflecting a lack of will by the sector to clear their dues.

Instead of resolving the issue, the present government has repeatedly increased rates to raise additional revenue.

The Sindh government had to pay Rs43.749 billion until April 2013 while the AJK had an outstanding amount of Rs22.925 billion.

The present government in a previous meeting of the Council of Common Interests (CCI) proposed at-source recovery of the amount from the share of provinces in federal divisible pool. However, provinces rejected this proposal.

The PML-N government proposed to give all distribution companies under the management control of respective provinces with an arrangement that the payment of energy purchased by the Discos would be the liability of the provincial government concerned.

This policy further says that in case any provincial government fails to clear its dues for any month, these would be deducted at-source from its National Finance Commission award share.

The dues against the government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, including Fata stood at Rs19.997bn. It does not include domestic users of Fata.

The recovery of receivables from the Punjab government stood at Rs8.693 billion, which is lower than Sindh and KP, but slightly on higher side from the province of Balochistan.

The arrears against Balochistan stood at Rs6.102bn, while an amount of Rs7.096 billion is due against the federal government.

Besides, an amount of Rs18.545 billion is due to be recovered from domestic consumers of Fata, and an amount of Rs1.217bn from agriculture tube-wells in Balochistan.

The dues against KESC stood at Rs44.541bn until April 2013.