Mohinder Verma
JAMMU. Nov 16: The Special Enforcement Wing of the Power Development Department has detected 125 Mega Watt concealed load during its 543 inspections across the State and imposed immediate penalty of Rs 10 crore on the erring consumers. This has also established that there was a well knit nexus mainly between the high-end consumers and officials of the Department, who for their own interests were causing huge loss to the State exchequer.
Official sources told EXCELSIOR that the Special Enforcement Wing, which was constituted on the directions of the Chief Minister, Omar Abdullah, has carried out a total of 543 inspections across the State during the current financial year so far and yielded good results by detecting the concealed load and imposing and realizing penalty of Rs 10 crore from the erring consumers.
“During the inspections the main focus was on the high-end consumers like hotels, business establishments and industrial units, which were causing huge loss to the State exchequer by concealing the exact consumption of electricity in connivance with the field staff of the Power Development Department”, sources said.
They disclosed that during these 543 inspections a total of 125 Mega Watts of concealed load came on the records of the Power Development Department and now the Department would be able to realize proper tariff on this load, which would also result into continuous improvement in the revenue in the future.
In response to a question, sources said, “the penalty amount of Rs 10 crore would go up further as the Department is in the process of assessing the period during which these erring consumers were resorting to power theft by way of concealing exact load”, adding “as per the preliminary estimates the inspections carried out till date would yield not less than Rs 50 crore”.
About the findings of the Special Enforcement Wing, sources said that during these inspections the sanctioned load of the consumers was found very less as compared to the on-spot connected load. Moreover, in majority of the establishments the electronic meters were found tampered with. “Even tampering of service line by tapping supply side of meter, direct hooking of LT line and illegal connection without any agreement also came to the fore during these inspections”, sources added.
“What to talk of other electricity consumers even some serving and retired bureaucrats, members of judiciary and doctors besides large number of businessmen having turnover in crores were found indulging in power thefts in connivance with the field staff of the Power Development Department”, sources disclosed, adding “in several posh areas, several VVIPs and VIPs were found using unauthorized connections for security guards deployed in their residence”.
Responding to a query regarding the composition of Special Enforcement Wing, sources said, “the wing is comprises of Executive Engineers and Assistant Executive Engineers from all the seven wings of the Power Development Department. The Principal Secretary Power prepares the roaster and then the divisions are allotted for random inspections in order to ensure that the field staff of the Department doesn’t have prior information about the area(s), which the Special Enforcement Wing teams will inspect”.
Moreover, Principal Secretary fixes the number of inspections for the teams and this not only generates healthy competition but also brings to the fore the slack and non-performing officers, sources further said.
In reply to another question, sources said, “in all the inspections action under different sections of J&K Electricity Act has been taken against the erring consumers.
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