PESHAWAR, Jan 10: The Federal Government deducted at source Rs585.5m from the NWFP government share in the 2001-02 financial year on account of Wapda arrears. The Authority claims the dues were payable by district governments and their subordinate entities, according to official sources.

“The provincial government was made to lose substantial amount of its funds by Wapda in the name of recovering electricity arrears payable by the district governments,” said an official source.

Of that amount, a sum of Rs131m was adjusted against NWFP’s electricity duty account - a provincial levy Wapda collects on behalf of provinces every month from the electricity consumers.

Besides, Rs210.7m were deducted at source from the provincial government’s net hydel profit account, whereas another amount of Rs243.9m was deducted at source by the federal government from the NWFP’s direct federal transfers.

This amount was later transferred to Wapda by the last federal government.

The provincial government would recover equivalent amount from the district government concerned through book adjustment, according to official sources.

“District governments have been informed that the provincial government would recover from them — through at source deduction — the amount Wapda has deducted at source from the province on account of arrears payable by them,” said a well placed official source.

In this respect, the provincial government, said the sources, had already started at source deduction from the district governments.

The district governments, said the sources, would not get full federal funds they were entitled to. The funds transferred every month to NWFP government by the Centre for onward distribution among the district governments to off set the impact resulted by the abolition of octroi.

“The money deducted at source from NWFP would now be recovered in instalments from the district governments concerned,” said the sources.

The Provincial Finance Commission (PFC) award authorizes the provincial government to recover through book adjustments from the district governments the amount deducted at source from its (provincial government’s) income.

To avoid at source deduction, said the sources, district governments had been asked to devise a mechanism to avoid excessive Wapda billing in addition to ensuring that the authority did not take recourse to deducting at source the amount of unpaid electricity bills from the provincial government’s share.

“However, that could not be ensured after Wapda deducted at source from the NWFP government’s share on account of arrears payable by the district governments,” said the sources.

Out of the total sum deducted at source from the province during the 2001-02 financial year, major chunk pertained to the Peshawar City District.

Figures collected from different sources revealed that through at source deduction from the NWFP government Wapda recovered Rs395m on account of arrears payable by the Peshawar City District of which major sum of Rs387m pertained alone to the Town-1 of the Peshawar city district comprising area previously falling under the jurisdiction of the Municipal Corporation, Peshawar.

Apart from the Peshawar district, Wapda recovered [through book adjustments from NWFP government] an amount of Rs9m on account of electricity arrears against district Charsadda, Rs3m from Nowshera district, Rs20m from district Mardan, Rs25m from district Kohat, Rs46m from district Abbottabad, Rs9m from district Haripur, Rs8m from district D.I.Khan, Rs3m from district Tank, Rs9.8m from district Mansehra, Rs13m and Rs14m from district Bannu and district Lakki Marwat, respectively.