PESHAWAR, Aug 3: The NWFP government will evolve a mechanism to resolve disputes between provincial public sector consumers and the Peshawar Electric Supply Company (Pesco), according to official sources.

The government has worked out a plan to develop a system at the provincial and district levels to monitor power consumed by the public sector departments and similar entities.

The move is aimed at bringing down the provincial government's electricity bill which costs around Rs three billion tothe provincial exchequer every year. The monitoring system would be introduced to curb misuse of electricity on the part of unscrupulous elements within the government employees at all tiers of governance, ensuring timely payment of monthly electricity bills to avoid extra payment on account of surcharge, additional surcharge and piling up of arrears.

Besides, monthly discussions would be held between the departments of the provincial government and Pesco at the provincial and district levels to resolve issues pertaining to bills.

"It will also help the government keep Pesco's bill issuing authorities under constant check," said an official of the provincial government. Data reconciliation inspectors would be employed at the district level to help the district governments regularly pursue reconciliation of their departments' monthly power bills with the Pesco authorities.

"Recruitment of staff would form one of the measures the government intends to apply to bring down its annual electricity bill," said a finance manager of the province.

The provincial government recovered Rs 200 million from Pesco after it was established during the reconciliation process last year which the public sector consumers were made to pay more than what they should have been billed for the power consumption.

In its current financial year's budget documents the provincial government has taken the position that cases involving Rs 300 million are pending reconciliation between the Pesco and different district governments.

During the course of reconciliation the provincial government has detected that payment of power charges of several of the residences allotted to its employees were being fraudulently paid from the provincial kitty causing huge financial losses to the province.

" Pesco will be asked to remove from the official record all those connections that do not belong to the provincial government." a government source said. Provincial government has around 23,000 public sector consumers. Several of them have been wrongfully registered as official connections.