NEW DELHI: Measures against power theft in the Capital are all set to get more teeth now with the opening of five special courts exclusively for dealing with power theft cases. While two courts each will be for BSES Rajdhani and North Delhi Power Limited areas, one would cater to cases in the area served by BSES Yamuna.

Of the three special courts for BSES discoms, one would be inaugurated at Patparganj this coming Friday (September 1) while another would be opened at Vikaspuri the next day.

The third court is expected to come up at Malviya Nagar in another month. As for NDPL areas, the special courts become functional on August 21.

According to sources, this is the first time that all the discoms are getting special courts for dealing exclusively with their power theft cases.

The five special courts set up in January 2005 were also dealing with other cases along side power theft cases.

The special courts are bound to make a difference in the disposal of cases, sources said, adding that of the 700-odd cases of power theft filed by BRPL and about 1,200 by BYPL so far, only about 50 have been disposed of. In the past four years BSES has booked over 43,000 cases of power theft and unearthed an electricity load of over 2.65 lakh kW.

In 2006 so far, BRPL and BYPL have conducted over 4,000 and 7,500 raids and booked an electricity load of 38,000 kW and 40,000 kW respectively.

Sources said since the Aggregate Technical and Commercial losses in BRPL areas are still 35.2 per cent -- down from 51.54 per cent in July 2002 when the discoms took over power distribution -- and the figure in the case of BYPL is 43.60 per cent down from 63.16 per cent in 2002, these courts hold out a lot of promise since a one per cent reduction in power thefts leads to an approximate saving of around Rs. 80 crores a year.

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