Prabir Barua Chowdhury, Ctg
The Power Development Board (PDB) in Chittagong zone has been struggling to collect dues from different government offices which have not been paying electric bills for years.

The unpaid dues have piled up to Tk 120 crore with surcharges until December last year.

According to a document of the PDB obtained by The Daily Star, the unpaid bills of different agencies under the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development (LGRD); the Ministry of Textiles and Jute; and the Ministry of Food and Disaster Management of the region have exceeded the double digit mark in crores of taka.

Of the defaulters, the LGRD ministry tops the list with dues of about Tk 70 crore including about Tk 57 crore of Chittagong City Corporation (CCC).

With dues about Tk 15 crore including about Tk 12 crore of Bangladesh Jute Mills Corporation (BJMC), the textile and jute ministry is in the second position.

About Tk 13 crore have remained unpaid by different offices of the Ministry of Food and Disaster Management.

Preferring anonymity, officials at the PDB in Chittagong zone said despite several initiatives including sending formal letters and making phone calls to the defaulter offices, they could achieve little success in collecting the unpaid bills due to lengthy official procedures.

The defaulter ministries often try to negotiate with the Ministry of Power, Energy and Mineral Resources. The PDB has to wait for a decision from the power and energy ministry regarding the collection of dues, they said.

The officials, however, said at first the PDB will collect the actual amount of the dues as per a decision of the board taken in January this year. Then they will go for collecting the surcharges, they added.

Raisuddin Sarker, chief engineer at the PDB, said the decisions about the surcharges are taken usually at inter-ministerial meetings where representatives from the Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDB) are present.

The BPDB directs the local PDB administration to collect surcharges as per decisions taken at the meetings, he said adding, "We take such initiatives according to the directions."

Raisuddin Sarker said the CCC paid Tk 1.35 crore on April 10 this year.

"Officials of the CCC pledged in January this year to pay 25 lakh taka per month to reduce the dues," he said adding, "It was a verbal understanding between the two offices."

On June 28, 2010, the PDB disconnected the power supply to the CCC Bhaban at Anderkilla for non-payment of bills, and it was restored after 26 hours.

Admitting to the huge amount of dues to the PDB, Md Shamsuddoha, secretary of the CCC, said they did not pay any surcharge in the past years.

Without surcharges, the CCC's actual amount of dues is about Tk 7 crore to Tk 8 crore, he claimed.

ANM Jasim Uddin, liaison officer of BJMC in Chittagong zone, said the dues accrued for a delay in bill processing system of the PDB.

"The PDB delays about two to three months to provide us with the monthly bills of our 11 factories. By the time we get all the bills together the amount becomes too big to pay at one time," he said.

The PDB's Raisuddin said they are adopting a tough policy to collect the unpaid amount from different government offices.

Mentioning the disconnection of the CCC Bhaban's power supply he said, "If we do not get the dues properly from the offices, then we will snap their power supply."

Officials at the PDB said repair and maintenance work including replacement of transformers and electric lines are often delayed for fund shortage as it takes a long time to get allocations from the government. If the clients of PDB paid the dues on a regular basis it would be easier for the board to carry out those work in a smooth and timely manner with that money, they added.

Regular payment of dues would also help the government in buying gas and oil for power generation, they said.

If the dues are not collected properly the government will not get any benefit by increasing prices of electricity in the country, they noted.