Case against Airtel for power theft

Police has registered a case against telecom giant Airtel for allegedly stealing electricity from rival BSNL in Kargil district of Jammu and Kashmir following a complaint by the the public sector company.

"On 3 August 2018, a written complaint was received from BSNL authorities at Kargil regarding tapping and theft of electricity from the transformer used exclusively by BSNL for its mobile tower by Airtel tower at Chanigund in Kargil," a police spokesman said today.

He said SSP Kargil T Gyalpo constituted a team headed by DySP Kargil Ishtyaq A Kacho and accompanied by Executive Engineer PDD Kargil Mohammad Altaf.

"On visiting the spot, the team found that the Airtel tower was connected illegally to the BSNL transformer through a cable and Airtel was actually consuming illegally the electric supply meant exclusively for the BSNL tower at Chanigund," the spokesman said.

He said a case under Section 95 of the Electricity Act was lodged at Kargil police station and investigation is under progress.

An Airtel spokesperson said "The tower does not belong to Airtel and is operated by a Tower company. We are surprised to see our name being dragged into this complaint and BSNL including the name of Airtel without verifying the facts. We will take this up with them and are also in touch with the Authorities to clarify the same."