LAHORE, April, 10: The receivables of Wapda soared to Rs48.881 billion by the end of February, adding a fresh default of Rs4.996 billion to the last year’s figure of Rs43.885 billion during the first seven months of the current financial year.

According to documents made available to Dawn, the new figures include Rs20.679 billion default by the private consumers. The Wapda authorities have always been at pain to deny “private default” and claimed a recovery of over 100 per cent — arrears in addition to current billing — from private sector.

The private default, which stood at Rs13.769 billion in 1998, remained constant at Rs13.041 billion during 1999. But it rose to Rs14.674 billion in 2000, Rs16.546 billion in 2001 and stood at Rs20.679 billion in 2002.

The current public and private default came down from Rs62 billion in year 2000 to Rs23 billion last year when Wapda managed to get at source deduction of Rs27 billion and wrote off around Rs12 billion to different corporations.

The central government owes Wapda Rs1.814 billion and the defence Rs2.145 billion bringing to Rs3.959 billion the total federal default.

The AJK government owes Wapda Rs1.275 billion, Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) domestic consumers Rs6.117 billion, and the NWFP Rs5.109 billion.

The Balochistan government has to pay Rs1.160 billion and the Federal government Rs0.682 billion. Balochistan consumers owe Rs0.260 billion, thus totalling Rs2.102 billion. The Karachi Electric Supply Company is still to pay Wapda Rs11.381 billion. This brings the total federal default to Rs24.834 billion.

The provincial government agencies have a cumulative default of Rs3.368 billion, the Punjab owes Rs0.942 billion, the NWFP Rs0.661 billion, Sindh Rs1.692 billion and Balochistan Rs0.073 billion. The total official default — both federal and provincial — stood at Rs28.202 billion.

The private default — including spillover from the last month’s permanent disconnections, deferred amount and running defaulters — has shot up to Rs20.679 billion, an addition of Rs 4.133 billion during the first seven months of the current financial year.