FAISALABAD, March 16: Most of district governments have fallen on their job to recoup excess amount of millions of rupees paid to the water users associations (WUAs) during the period of 2004-05 and 2005-06 despite strict instructions by the provincial government.

Sources said the watercourses improvement project involving billions of rupees had been kicked off on the directive of President Pervez Musharraf.

They said it had been decided that desired WUAs would deposit 20 per cent of the total cost while district governments concerned would spend the remaining amount.

The government, they said, had released the amount after approval of the project, but its incumbents rarely bothered to check whether the amount paid to the association was actually spent or not.

Sources said that 27 district governments had to recover Rs19.261 million paid to WUAs in different areas. Among them, nine district governments could not make any headway in this regard despite repeated instructions.

The Rahim Yar Khan district has to recover Rs1.39 million, Dera Ghazi Khan Rs1.34 million, Faisalabad Rs1.49 million, Jhang Rs1.38 million, Sahiwal Rs1.55 million, Kasur Rs1.9 million, Okara Rs1.79 million, Gujranwala Rs1.21 million and Sialkot Rs317,543 from different associations.

The Federal Steering Committee (FSC) in its last meeting had also taken a serious notice regarding recovery of the amount, they said and added that negligence on the part of district governments was also causing difficulties in reconciliation of accounts at provincial and federal level. They said the FSC wanted to get the entire balance amount recouped immediately.

A district government officer said that fluctuation of rates in the local market had been creating hindrances to the project. “We pay amount to associations according to the prevailing market rates or estimates approved by the authorities. It is the fluctuation of rates which decreases or increases the project cost.”

He said efforts were being made to recover the amount and the district government was trying positively to revalidate the amount within a fortnight.