Times
of India: Gurgaon: Saturday, 05 December 2015.
As the city
readies to host India's first zero-outage grid, it must first take care of an
immediate concern: power theft.
Power thefts
have witnessed a more than 200% jump in Gurgaon between April and October this
year. The total number of power thefts recorded for the period was 908 this
year as opposed to 275 in the corresponding period of 2014.
Total
penalties imposed also went up from Rs 276 lakh in 2014 to Rs 335 lakh.
According to Section 150 of the Electricity Act 2003, power theft is a crime
punishable with three years' jail. When contacted, an official of power discom
DHBVN said electricity theft was a major cause for concern for the department
and it has started cracking the whip in that regard. Officials said the
increase in the number of inspections and the FIRs lodged validated their
point.
"There
are different kinds of thefts and we are doing various things to prevent them
such as installing insulated cables. The major issue, however, remains lack of
public awareness and we are also working on that area by educating people on
the extent of penalty including jail that they are liable for by committing
theft," a senior DHBVN official said.
The total
number of connections checked for power theft has also gone up from 2,108 in
2014 to 2,488 in 2015. And the number of FIRs lodged in connection with power
theft have also gone up from 143 in 2014 to 397 in 2015. All the cases are
filed with a police station in Sushant Lok which is dedicated to dealing with
power theft cases. In response to an RTI query by activist Aseem Takyar,
approximately 9% of the total units of power received by DHBVN were lost in
Gurgaon circle for the whole of 2014.
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