Times of
India: Ludhiana: Friday, 06 March 2020.
After
failing to get a reply from the enforcement wing of the Punjab State Power
Corporation Limited (PSPCL) under the RTI Act for the past five months, a local
complainant has raised serious question over the working of local officials of
the enforcement department and levelled serious allegation against it for
protecting an offender, who had indulged in power theft for organising a
function.
Giving
information on this, complainant Deepak Aggarwal said that “A few months back,
I had taken up the matter of power theft with the officials concerned of the
power corporation. This was happening in front of my home as my neighbours had
illegally made a connection with the main line supply for holding some religious
function during night hours. I noticed the same and raised the matter before
the power corporation officials for further action. But even after this, local
officials of the power corporation department didn’t act against the offenders,
which irked me.
Following
this, I took up the matter of no action against the higher authorities for some
department action on alleged unethical working of the local department. The
higher authorities take notice of the complaint and suspended a local official
and transferred another as a preventive measure in the same case.
“After
that, I filed two RTI queries in the power corporation department for getting
information on my complaint and within the respective timeframe, the power
corporation gave the answer to one query on the action against a local lineman.
But I didn’t receive the answer on the second RTI query, which is on the how
much penalty had been imposed on the offenders who were indulging in power
theft activities for arousing a sense of fear among them.”
“I
have been waiting for the past five months for a reply to the same query as I
have spent a lot of my energy and time for raising the right cause and I wanted
to get justice by teaching lesson to each and every single person who committed
power theft for personal benefits,” the complainant said.
Another
family member of complainant, Manju Aggarwal, said, “After failing to get a
reply to the RTI filed in the set timeframe, I took up the same matter with the
higher authorities of enforcement department of power corporation, which didn’t
give us a satisfactory reply and forced us to take up the matter with the
mediapersons. We have faced a lot of harassment in the same case and we will
leave no stone unturned until we get justice.”
On
the other hand, Maninder Kumar, senior section engineer of the enforcement
wing, said, “We have received only one RTI query in the name of the above
complaint and we have delivered the answer to the same query several months
back after following each and every norm.”
The
second RTI query was not received by the local department officials,” he added.
“Moreover, if they wanted to get some quick reply on the same query they can
visit our local regional office with a demand letter for getting a reply on
every topic as the power corporation department does not stop anyone from
getting a reply on a query under RTI,” Kumar said.
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