Outstanding utility bills of factories in the Punjab capital of Lahore alone amount to 3.3 billion rupees, The News reported.

Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Ltd., a Government-run gas company, is trying to recover 4 billion rupees, the newspaper said.

The campaign to recover outstanding utility bills follows Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's austerity programme announced last week on national television. The clamp down comes as Pakistan tries to reduce the impact of economic sanctions imposed following its nuclear explosions. Last month's nuclear testing was in response to five tests by India, which also has been hit by international sanctions.

Sharif, who currently is in Britain to raise money from expatriate Pakistanis, also has promised to confiscate (half-a-million hectares) of land from some of thecountry's largest and most powerful land owners.

When the British left the subcontinent in 1947, they gave huge tracts of land to local leaders as payment for their loyalty. That land will be taken away and given to the country's landless, Sharif has said. A land reforms implementation committee has been established to recover the land. According to reports the Government is preparing legislation that would sentence to seven years anyone found guilty of illegally possessing land.