PESHAWAR, Feb 6: The problem of non-payment of electricity dues and illegal connections acquired by people living in the outskirts of the provincial metropolis is attaining serious proportions because of lack of cooperation between the NWFP government and Wapda, sources said.

"There are several areas in and around the provincial capital where due to hostile conditions our staff cannot distribute monthly bills or disconnect power connections for non-payment," said a senior official of the Peshawar Electric Supply Company (Pesco), a subsidiary of Wapda.

The sources said that the company suffered over Rs340 million losses in the first half of the current fiscal year after its Khyber circle's revenue remained much less than the number of units consumed by consumers in area falling under its jurisdiction.

Out of a total of 111 million units distributed by the Khyber circle during the July-December period of the current financial year, over 85 million units went down the drain without yielding any revenue because of pilferage.

Pesco's data reflected that against 19,395 legal connections the number of illegal connections, taken without lawful authority from power transformers and distribution cables, stood at about 29,000 in Sarband, Mashogagger, Sheikh Mohammadi, Din Bahader, Balarzai, Badhber and Pishtakhara areas - falling under the Khyber circle.

Attempts to persuade people to pay their bills by contacting them through their elected representatives also did not work, the sources said.

Apart from the Khyber circle, Pesco's Peshawar circle, said the officials, also involved certain pockets where the recovery staff could not enter due to insecurity and where number of illegal connections was growing at an alarming pace.

They said that company's line losses stood at 70 per cent in the Opazai area, 73 per cent in Palosi, 55 per cent in Akhundabad and 66 per cent in the Hazarkhawani area - all falling under the jurisdiction of the Peshawar circle.

"We have registered thousands of FIR against people involved in power pilferage but to no avail as police appears to be least interested to act against people involved in power theft," said a spokesman for Pesco.

He said that Pesco high-ups had taken up the issue with the provincial government on several occasion but every effort to win cooperation from the civil administration failed.

Pesco officials said that the provincial government was unmoved because it feared that action against the culprits involved in power theft would lead to disturb peace and might create law and order situation in several areas.

The company is also not being paid electricity charges against the power consumed by thousands of domestic consumers settled in 25 villages situated on the line of demarcation between the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas - from the Mohmand Agency side - and Shabqadar, which forms part of the NWFP. According to official sources, the company has to recover about Rs3 billion from the villages.

Officials of the provincial government accused the authority of meting "step-motherly' attitude to the people of the NWFP.

"The NWFP is the major source in terms of generating hydle power, but still its people suffer the most at the hands of power loadshedding by Pesco," said an official.

Rejecting the provincial government's claim, which was also made during the on-going session of the provincial government, Wapda's spokesman said that Pesco was not committing loadshedding in any part of the province.

"The use of power has registered tremendous increase during the past few weeks because of low temperature and gas loadshedding," said the Wapda spokesman, and added: "The rise in power consumption leads to tripping causing power suspension in several parts of the province."

Pesco officials said that the company made billions of rupees investment during the last couple of years to augment its power distribution system in various parts of the province. "But this has only resulted in more load on the distribution system undermining the capability of the network," said the spokesman.