LAHORE, Feb 21: Defaulters in connivance with the Wapda staff are neutralizing the arrears recovery campaign through disconnection of supply by getting new connections.

New connections were found on 178 of 200 premises to which power supply was disconnected on account of non-payment of bills during a sample survey recently. They had paid Rs2,500 to Rs5,000 to the line superintendents or the SDO for getting new connection.

According to Wapda rule, power supply to an entire property will be disconnected on non-payment of bill and new connection could not be given without clearing arrears in full.

Of 132 commercial defaulters in Lahore Circle-three, 112 were found using power from new connections on checking. The connections installed mainly in small industrial units had been disconnected on account of non-payment of dues totalling Rs25 million. Every defaulter had to pay over Rs100,000.

APP adds: Wapda Chairman Tariq Hamid on Saturday urged officials to recover Rs9.6 billion from disconnected defaulters.

Presiding over a conference held to review the performance of power wing in January, he called upon the chief executives of distribution companies to spare no effort for making recoveries from the disconnected consumers.

Members of the Authority, GMs and chief executives of power generation, transmission and distribution companies attended the meeting at Wapda House.

Mr Hamid observed with satisfaction that Customer Service Centres were delivering the goods. These centres should be located at conveniently accessible places, he said.

Referring to the revival of 20 per cent employees' quota, the Wapda chief said that priority would be determined on merit as and when a situation fell vacant.

About the disciplinary cases under Wapda E&D rules, he said the procedure should be followed in a fair and transparent manner so that no flaw was left for litigation.

The Wapda chairman observed that technical losses in the power system were declining.