PESHAWAR, April 11: With the political authorities of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) consistently failing to make the power consumers pay their electricity charges, the number of illegally installed transformers in the tribal belt has risen to well over 6300, according to official sources.

The situation speaks volume of the failure of the authorities   concerned to ensure writ of the state in the tribal areas—falling under the direct control of the federal government.

The Peshawar-based officers of the Water and Power Development Authority (Wapda),  when contacted, said that the issue could easily be dealt with effectively by the political administrations of all the seven agencies and six Frontier Regions (FRs), the Fata were composed of.

“If they want to remove the illegally installed transformers, they can easily do,” said a senior Wapda officer, adding that “but they’ll never do for reasons best known to all”.

Wapda, said the sources, had installed a total of 10,294 transformers in Fata, including 8,835 in the seven agencies and remaining 1,459 in the FRs.

The authority could hardly do any thing against those who had installed transformers on their own, said the sources.

“There are agencies (administrative units in Fata) where our teams can not visit without taking guards from the political authorities,” said the official explaining Wapda’s inability to act against the illegally installed transformers.

Out of the total number of them some 2156 have been installed in the Khyber agency, 1194 in the Mohmand agency, 1132 in the South Waziristan agency, 1041 in the Bajaur agency, 183 in the North Waziristan agency, 77 in the Orakzai agency, 73 in the Kurram agency and 234 in the six FRs.

There were people in Fata, said the sources, who had individually installed transformers to manage the load of single house.

The Wapda sources said that political authorities did not allow the authority to make the tribesmen pay their electricity charges and accumulated arrears which touched Rs24 billion mark by the   close of February, last. “It is only because of PAs’ non-cooperation which is making Wapda to suffer monthly loss of about Rs1 billion,” said an other senior officer on request of anonymity.