250 FIRs against power thieves under Mass Raid Programme

Meerut
Under the newly formed Mass Raid Programme of power corporation, more than 250 FIRs have been filed in cases of electricity theft against 80 people in Meerut, 131 in Bulandshahr, 11 in Ghaziabad and 27 in Baghpat.
Besides, Rs 6.70 lakhs have been recovered during door-to-door checking. As many as 133 illegal power connections have also been snapped in Meerut.
Currently, the Mass Raid Programme is going on in 14 districts of western UP that come under Paschimanchal Vidyut Vitaran Nigam Ltd (PVVNL).
These districts include Meerut, Baghpat, Ghaziabad, Gautam Budh Nagar, Shamli, Muzaffarnagar, Rampur, Bijnor, Saharanpur, among others. According to the managing director PVVNL, Ashutosh Niranjan, “Through this drive, we wish to send a strong message to law breakers that we have adopted a no tolerance policy when it comes to power theft. The Mass Raid Programme will continue in these districts for now.”
During the raids, most of the power theft cases involved people resorting to katia (illegal connections) to procure electricity for their homes and business establishments.
The programme started from April 16 and after a month, 743 thefts were found in Meerut by the vigilance team, while irregularities were found in another 302 establishments.
In all 1,029 FIRs were registered and Rs 1.45 crore were recovered from the defaulters. Similarly, in Ghaziabad 967 cases of thefts were found with irregularities in 343 establishments. Here as well 1,310 FIRs were registered. Saharanpur on the other hand witnessed 2,200 FIRs while Moradabad witnessed 1,962 FIRs.
Explaining the difference between the mass raid drive and 100-Day Stop Power Theft programme, which have been running parallel, public relations officer at PVVNL, HN Singh said, “The 100-day programme involves the vigilance team and is a regular programme to curb power theft divided into 100 days slot but in mass raid drive, a bigger group comprising senior officials of PVVNL, district administration personnel and technicians raid the establishments in an area with high cases of line losses. Not only the meters are checked but even exhaustive checking of equipment run on a connection and the load being used is done. It is a more comprehensive programme to detect power theft.”[Courtesy:Times Of India]