ISLAMABAD, Sept 13: Having failed to improve recovery of outstanding electricity bills now exceeding Rs330 billion, the government decided on Thursday to hand over cases of defaulters and conniving officers of distribution companies to the National Accountability Bureau for criminal proceedings.
Informed sources told Dawn that a meeting presided over by Water and Power Minister Chaudhry Ahmad Mukhtar was informed on Thursday that the total recovery of electricity bills in the first two months of the current fiscal year stood unchanged at the last year level of 84 per cent.
The meeting was informed that unpaid electricity bills payable by public sector consumers had gone beyond Rs133 billion while the amount payable by private defaulters had increased to Rs197 billion. Therefore, other than normal receivables the total outstanding amount to be paid by public and private sector defaulters stood at Rs330 billion.
The Sukkur Electric Supply Company was identified as the worst performer with its recovery being only 57 per cent while Gujranwala Electric Power Company stood out as the best performer with the recovery rate of over 92 per cent. Recovery by most of the companies operating in Punjab hovered between 85 and 92 per cent.
This situation was unacceptable to the minister who had taken the electricity crisis as a challenge when he opted to give up the ministry of defence to become minister for water and power. He told participants of the meeting that he could not face politicians and power consumers when bill recovery ratio did not improve even a single digit.
Some heads of the power companies, the sources said, pledged to improve recoveries by next month, but the minister said he had been hearing such promises for several months now but the situation had not improved on the ground.
The minister informed the chief executive of distribution companies that the government had decided to proceed against officials failing to achieve targets or conniving with defaulters both under disciplinary rules and criminal proceedings.