Power Theft
Industrial unit fined Rs 2 cr
Kuldip Bhatia

Ludhiana, February 3
In what could be described as one of the biggest cases of power theft, the enforcement staff of the PSEB caught an industrial unit in Rajpura in the act of stealing massive power through meter- tampering last evening.

The power supply of the industrial unit, engaged in wire drawing, was disconnected on the spot and a demand notice has been served for a penalty of Rs 2.06 crore. A case under relevant provisions of the Electricity Act has also been registered against the unit at the Anti-Power Theft police station at Patiala.

The Chief Engineer (Enforcement) of the PSEB, HS Randhawa, who personally supervised the entire operation with the assistance of enforcement officials from Khanna and Mohali without intimating local officials of the operations wing, told The Tribune here today that the firm, RK Welds, located on GT Road in Rajpura town has a connected load of 545 KW, categorised in large-scale (LS) supply.

"On the basis of a tip-off, a raid was conducted on the industrial unit by a team comprising an Executive Engineer of the enforcement wing from Khanna and another official from Mobile Meter Testing Squad from Mohali. In the course of intensive checking of the energy meter and electrical installations, the meter was found tampered with and detected to be slow by 50 per cent," Randhawa said.