RAWALPINDI: The Water and Sanitation Agency (Wasa) has settled its liabilities after paying Rs1.9 billion to the Islamabad Electric Supply Company and Rs1.5 billion to the Capital Development Authority with the aid provided by the provincial government.

Talking to Dawn, Wasa Managing Director Saleem Ashraf said that the provincial government had been requested to provide financial aid to the agency to clear its liabilities. He said Rs1.980 billion owed to Iesco had been pending for the last two years for the electricity supply to 480 tube wells in the garrison city and the Rawal Dam filtration plant.He said that it was difficult for the agency to pay the electricity supply bills because of its meagre income over the last two years.

Regarding the CDA, there was Rs1.59 billion outstanding amount pendingforthelast16yearsagainst Wasa`s share for the operation and maintenance of the Khanpur Dam Filtration Plant in Sangjani.

He said that a year ago, Wasa did not have additional money available to pay its share to the CDA and the provincial government was approached with a request to clear the pending amount. He said that WASA was getting 6 million gallons daily (MGD) of water from Khanpur Dam and it shared the operational and maintenance cost with the CDA.

Speaking about the Wasa budget, he said the agency had planned to complete the annual budget next month, adding that this year, Wasa would present a surplus budget. He said that after getting the financial aid from the Punjab government, the income generated from the water and sewerage bills would be used to upgrade the water supplysystem in the garrison city.

Mr Ashraf said that Wasa had aimed to recover Rs2.371 billion in the current fiscal year and so far it has recovered Rs3 billion. He added that the recovery will increase in June as well.

He said in the last fiscal year 2023-24, a target of Rs1.570 billion was fixed and Rs1.717 billion was recovered, adding that the target for this fiscal year was Rs2.7 billion and the agency had already recovered Rs3 billion in 11 months.

`There are 134,681 consumers in the garrison city, and 96,971 consumers are paying their bills, while the recovery teams have been asked to bring all consumers in the paying category,` he said.

He said the basic reason for better recovery this year was the `new plan of recovery`, as the agency formed special teams to recover money from habitual defaulters without any discrimination. He warned that defaulters were being given time till May 31 to clear their dues, after which, the civic agency would not waive off late fee charges and instalments.