PESCO (Peshawar Electric Supply Company) and TESCO (Tribal Electric Supply Company) suffer the maximum in line losses in their endeavors to supply electricity to the NWFP and FATA. While electricity is getting increasingly expensive to manufacture, the whopping line losses caused by the 'free electricity' culture of these areas is being deliberately ignored, to please the terrorists it seems. Why in the world should the tribal citizens refuse to pay the electricity bills but still get uninterrupted supply? TESCO suffers these heavy line losses because the electricity in FATA is free to tribal citizens for mysterious reasons. That means the 1/3rd population of the area, that includes foreigners like Afghans, Arabs and Chechnyans that are settled there, do not pay a penny in electricity bills. The electricity companies calculate that they consume Rs. 9 billions worth of free electricity, a sum that has to be allocated in the budget as a subsidy. PESCO, the company that supplies electricity to the rest of NWFP, also suffers similar losses. Half of Peshawar is, technically, a 'tribal area' as is denoted by the term FR that we see added to various localities in Peshawar. FR-Kohat, FR-Bannu, FR-D. I. Khan, FR-Tank, likewise, pay no electricity bills. The cost of this 'free' electricity is being borne by customers of the NWFP as PESCO is an independent entity now and the WAPDA no longer picks the tab for it to pass on to rest of Pakistan as it used to do. The war-ravaged NWFP citizens have to pay it themselves now. This is strange governance by the government. They are giving facilities and subsidies to the terrorists while the people of Swat and the rest of NWFP, victims of the same terrorists, are being billed with even the arrears of these terrorists to cover the cost of electricity. The war on terrorism being fought in the NWFP has, by one reckoning, caused damage worth tens of billions of dollars to this province. Billboards all over the NWFP blare loud and clear the demand of all people of the province that we should be declared a 'war-affected area'. The government of Pakistan is simply paying no heed. -DR. KHURRUM SHAUKAT YUSAFZAI, Peshawar, December 23.