ISLAMABAD, Dec 4: Wapda has asked the federal government to take over its liabilities worth Rs29 billion accumulated on account of electricity arrears of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) to ease its cash flow problems.

Wapda chairman Tariq Hameed told reporters here on Thursday that he had taken up the issue with the finance ministry.

He did not agree with the suggestion that Wapda has asked for money injection, saying it was neither money injection nor charity because it was Wapda’s electricity bills which the government has not been able to clear.

He said his priority would be to revamp Wapda’s old transmission system because of which the utility was making huge system losses. He said Wapda would be making capital investment of Rs27 billion during the current fiscal year, of which Rs5 billion would be utilized for improvement of the transmission system.

The allocations for system rehabilitation would be increased next year and further in the next three-four years. He said electricity theft was also an area where public motivation was required and division-wise details would help tackle the problem.

Mr Hameed said one area where the past managements could not concentrate for loss reduction was the motivation and he planned to work in this direction and educate the people for payment of bills.

The newly-appointed Wapda chairman said a lot of data was available in the utility about the losses and he had decided to throw it out. “We even have the sub-division wise data of the losses and it is not difficult to overcome the problems,” he said.

As Wapda chairman, he said, he wanted to have both the Kalabagh and Bhasha dams as early as possible but the decision making rested with the federal government.

In reply to a question that some experts have raised reservations about the height of the Bhasha Dam in such a high mountainous region, Mr Hameed said that Wapda was satisfied with its design on all technical counts.

He said the two committees constituted by the President on water issues would be provided with all the available information and technical input to reach a decision. He said the committees would finalize their reports within 3-4 months time.