SATISH HANDA
In a drive against power thefts in Southern part of Haryana state by 236 teams of nearly 1200 employees of electricity department conducted nearly 7710 raids for two days at industrial premises, commercial buildings, shopping malls and commercial as well as few residential buildings at Gurugram, Daruheda, Faridabad, Hisar, Rewari,Sirsa, Bhiwani, Fatehabad, Jind and Palwal, the teams detected 2735 cases of nearly 6000 KW power thefts of value worth over Rs 200 crore. Ranjit Chautala minister for power supply in the state told media persons that the raids were conducted with the permission of Haryana chief minister Manohar Lal Khatter under complete secret ways with warnings to the investigation staff of electricity department that stern action will be taken in case of any leakage in this matter and surprisingly raiding staff was quite unaware where they are going to conducts raids. He said, action was taken in view of large number of complaints of power thefts with the involvement of staff of department causing heavy line losses.
Chautala said, the raid was conducted at 206 industrial complexes, 195 shopping malls and detected large scale embezzlements at 32 industrial houses and warned stern action against employees of department in case of their involvement in embezzlements. He disclosed that there were cases where parallel power connections were given to few consumers declared defaulters by the department. According to electricity department, line losses due to power thefts have now been reduced from 35 to 15%. According to official records, district wise detail of raids as regard cases of electricity thefts was identified as 380 at Hisar, 332 at Palwal,, 315 at Jind, 214 at Gurugram-I, 282 at Gurugram-II, 280 at Bhiwani, 244 at Faridabad,
Information reveals, Ranjit Chautala state power minister had a meeting with P.K. Das Additional Chief Secretary and Alok Mittal CID chief and decided to continue raids against power thefts in northern part of Haryana comprising of Sonepat, Panipat, Karnal, Kurukshetra, Yamunanagar, Ambala and Panchkula districts in March 2021 where nearly 50% lin losses have been identified and state government expects power theft of value worth over Rs 200 crore Meanwhile, Manohar Lal Khatter chief minister said that nearly 5500 villages in the state are now getting power supply for 24 hours and there is a proposal for installation of 20 lakh smart electricity meters in the state in near future.
