PESHAWAR, Jan 21: Water and Power Development Authority (Wapda) has disconnected electricity supply to areas inside Afghanistan bordering with Pakistan, according to official sources.

“The action was taken on Saturday,” a Peshawar-based Wapda spokesman told Dawn.

According to official sources, electricity supply was initially extended only to an Afghan border post on the Pakistan- Afghanistan border in 1994-95.

Later, the facility was apparently massively misused after the Taliban took over control of the area in 1996.

The Taliban authorities, said the sources, extended the facility to the areas adjacent to the Pakistan’s Torkham border town and several number of shops, roadside hotels and godowns where foreign goods were dumped for their onward smuggling into Pakistan, were using electricity from Pakistan without paying anything.

“We tried to disconnect the power supply much earlier during the Taliban’s presence, but every time the federal government intervened and stopped the organization from taking action,” said the sources in Wapda.

One such abortive attempt was made recently when the Taliban were under heavy attacks from the US bombers.

“Even at that time, the sitting government stopped us from disconnecting the electricity supply to the Afghan border areas,” said a senior Wapda source.

The Wapda spokesman said that a week ago the high-ups of the Khyber Rifles, Secretary to Home and Tribal Affairs Department, NWFP, and the Political Agent of the Khyber Agency in Fata had been informed that electricity supply to areas inside Afghanistan would be disconnected as the Authority was accumulating huge arrears with every passing month.

“A distribution line had been taken out to Afghanistan from a Wapda transformer installed close to the main gate of the Pak-Afghan border at Torkham,” said the source, adding that Wapda was not consulted or its permission was not sought when the decision to this effect was taken in 1994-95.”

Although some official sources put the blame on the people of tribal areas for illegally supplying the electricity inside Afghanistan, senior official sources said that the military high-ups acted unilaterally in the past and extended the facility to areas inside Afghanistan.