JALALABAD - The power utility chief for eastern Nangarhar province on Tuesday said a number of government departments and officials owed one billion afghanis in total to the company in arrears.
Da Afghanistan Brishna Shirkat (DABS) director for Nangarhar, Waheedullah Popalzai, warned the defaulters of cutting off their connections if they failed to clear the dues.
He told a press conference here that he had made an organized plan to overcome load-shedding in Jalalabad, the provincial capital.
He said 25 megawatts of power was provided to Nangarhar from the Naghlo hydropower dam while they had prepared a 50MW power network in line with people’s demand, citing it a reason for outages in some areas.  
Popalzai said a 60MWs capacity switch had been installed in the Naghlo dam and a third 20MW transformer was being installed at the dam.
With establishment of the sub-station, power supply would be increased by 18MW and the process of giving new connections would be started, he said.
A number of government agencies and officials owed one billion afs to the power company in arrears, Popalzai said, adding if they didn’t pay their power bills in a month, their connections would be cut off.
Popalzai did not name government departments defaulting on power bills. He said factories illegally benefitting from power would be deprived of electricity and their transformers sent to the Breshna department. 
He called on Jalalabad residents to avoid misuse of power and assured them if any Breshna Shirkatofficial was found involved in corruption, legal action would be taken against him.(Pajhwok)