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Cases of power theft detected

Staff Reporter

Two petrol pumps in South Delhi, 11 houses in Pharma Apartments found guilty

NEW DELHI: Two petrol pumps in South Delhi and 11 houses in the posh Pharma Apartments at Patparganj in East Delhi have been detected stealing electricity by Enforcement Teams of the power distribution company BSES. In the residential complex, the teams also detected the first instance of four de-tampered meters -- meters which still had their seals broken and had been once tampered -- but now were restored to their original accuracy levels.

The power company said while people know of incidents of adulteration at petrol pumps, they were shocked to find the two filling stations -- M/s Anand Service Station near Radisson Hotel and the Dhaula Kuan Service Station -- with tampered meters.

"M/s Anand Service Station and Dhaula Kuan Service Station had sanctioned loads of 40 KW and 41 KW respectively and they have been booked for Dishonest Abstraction of Energy (DAE) under the provisions of the Electricity Act, 2003, and penalised a sum of Rs. 50 lakhs and Rs. 18 lakhs respectively," said a BSES official.

BSES Director Lalit Jalan said: "We have taken a serious view of meter tampering at the petrol pumps. We have put the petrol pumps under a strict watch and will be carrying out more such raids in the days to come."

In the other raid on 15 houses in Pharma Apartments, 11 houses were found with tampered meters and fined between Rs. 50,000 and Rs. 1 lakh. Stating that this apartment block is primarily occupied by doctors, it said they were cumulatively stealing over 120 KW of power. While all the houses had a connected load of 5 KW to 10 KW, they were found to have deliberately slowed their meters between 50 and 90 per cent.

The power company said a disturbing trend had emerged in these raids. As in the case of the neighbouring Neelkanth Apartments - where 17 cases of meter tampering were detected recently -- it said here too the tampering had been done with the help of "organised persons".

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