UHBVN imposes penalty of Rs 23.29 cr on erring consumers

Intensifying its campaign to curb power theft, Uttar Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam (UHBVN) has imposed penalty of Rs 23.29 crore on the erring consumers and recovered Rs 12.49 crore from them.
The Nigam checked 24,455 consumer premises and detected 5,714 cases of pilferage of power in last two months, UHBVN spokesman said today.
The Nigam has imposed penalty of Rs 12.21 crore and Rs 11.08 crore in July and August respectively, he said.
He further said the maximum theft of Rs 4.05 crore was detected in operation circle Karnal, followed by operation circle Ambala (Rs 3.70 crore), Kaithal (Rs 3.31 crore), Kurukshetra (Rs 3.27 crore), Yamunanagar (Rs 2.88 crore), Panipat (Rs 1.90 crore), Sonipat (Rs 1.72 crore), Jhajjar (Rs 1.23 crore) and Rohtak (Rs 1.19 crore).

In most of the cases, the erring consumers were found stealing power through direct connections, meter by pass, tampering the meter or managing fake meters, the spokesman said.
To ensure that electricity is not drawn by the person without having a legitimate connection, the Nigam has constituted inter circle and inter division checking teams where the officers and staff are deputed, he said.

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In case of consumers whose connection has been
discontinued, the reconnection will be made on payment of the first installment after charging a fee of Rs 100 for domestic consumer and Rs 200 for non-domestic consumer, provided the disconnection has been affected within last six months.

The chief minister further said that those who would opt for the Voluntary Disclosure Scheme and Surcharge Waiver Scheme - would be able to deposit the payments in cash in old denomination notes of Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 up to November 24.
He said that payments to the tune of about Rs 75 crore have been received by the power utilities in old notes after November 8.
In reply to a question concerning the 'Mara Gao-Jag Mag Gao' scheme, he said 264 feeders covering 1,000 villages were taken up under the scheme.
At present, seven feeders were supplying power for 21 hours whereas the target is to supply power round-the-clock. Out of these seven feeders, four are in district Sirsa, two in district Ambala and one in district Gurugram.

Out these feeders, 141 feeders are supplying power for 18 hours. Also, it was for the first time in 20 years that power tariff has been reduced by paise 37 per unit. With the reduction in losses, the power tariff would also be reduced, he added.
When asked about the losses of the power utilities, it was informed that these would be reduced to targeted 25 per cent.
The chief minister also said that the concept of spot billing was being studied and certain companies were making presentations.
When his attention was drawn towards complaints of excessively high bills, he said that the software has been mended to resolve the issue. Now in case of high bills, the software sends an alert.