SATISH HANDA

 In view of large number of power theft cases reported in the state, HVPN vigilance department had launched a campaign at Gurugram, Dharuhera, Faridabad, Hisar and Rewari in the state during first week in March this year and recovered large number of power thefts cases of value worth Rs 234 crore. During present warm season the situation became worst due to increasing demand of electricity when on the direction of chief minister Manohar Lal Khatter state electricity supply minister Ranjit Singh Chautala  ordered to launched a massive drive against power thefts in all districts in the state for three days with effect from July 9 to 11 mainly during night by more than 500 teams accompanied by Chief Minister Flying Squad conducted raids at the premises of 27307 electricity consumers in the state suspected involved in power theft and caught 5508 consumers in thefts of more than796.9KW load of value worth over Rs 500 crore along with recovery of fine from alleged accused worth over Rs 24 crore. Vigilance team also registered theft cases against such power consumers and disconnected their connections till amount of power theft along with fine will be paid by them, Additional Chief Secretary P.K. Das told media persons.

While addressing media persons Ranjit Singh Chautala said that line loss due to power thefts is now likely to drop from 35% to between 15 to 17%. He said, state government providing electric services to the consumers in nearly 5400 villages across the state and due large number of theft cases most of the consumers had to suffer a lot due to frequest power down as such action was taken and such campaigns would continue in future also. Chautala said, this is the biggest campaign against those involved in power thefts in the history of Haryana state so far in which raids were made at the premises of small industry units, ice factory, cold storage, Banquet hall, poultry farm, brick kiln, milk dairy, petrol pump and few bulk domestic consumers ssssuspected involve in power thefts. He told that supply of electricity in farming sector has been increased by two hours and now farmers will get electricity for minimum10 hours in a day. Chautala said, in most of power theft cases it was observed that illegal supply of electricity was being taken directly from towers thus causing huge revenue loss to the government.

Preliminary investigation reveals that in three days campaign against power thefts maximum number of 346 theft cases were detected in Panchkula zone, followed by287 theft cases at Bhiwani-Dadri, 266 theft cases at Rohtak, 148 theft cases at Faridabad, 142 theft cases at Jhajjar, 130 theft cases at Hisar, 110 cases at Panipat, 106 theft cases at Fatehabad and 105 theft cases at Kaithal. Apart from this raiding teams detected  61 theft cases at Ambala,  71 theft cases atYamunanagar, 49 theft cases at Yamunanagar, 49 theft cases at Kurukshetra, 93 theft cases at Karnal, 89 theft cases at Sonepat, 95 theft cases at Gurugram-1, 87 theft cases at Gurugram-2, 99 theft cases at Palwal, 71 theft cases at Rewari, 40 theft cases at Narnaul, 59 theft cases at Sirsa, and 80 theft cases at Jind. P.K.Das Additional Chief Secretary told that detail of all theft cases, revenue loss due to power thefts total recoveries from consumers and amount of fine to be recovered from defaulters is under process and maximum cases of power theft were detected on G.T. Road belt, NCR and Southern part in the state. The raiding teams had to face irritant defaulters at few places during raids when raiding team members were house arrested for a long time at village Machhroli in Jhajjar district and rescued by timely arrival of police force. Raiding team members were attacked at Chhattarband Mohalla Ambala Cantt and beaten at village Ratanhedi near Ambala Cantt.