HPEA backs XEN, seeks suspension review

CHANDIGARH:
HT Correspondent

The Haryana Power Engineers' Association has demanded a review of the suspension of an executive engineer who, it held had been “punished under political pressure“ for taking action against defaulters.
President of the association RS Dahiya and general secretary Daljit Singh said it was often observed that whenever the supply of a defaulter was cut and the defaulter happened to be an influential person, the raiding staff along with officers concerned were either transferred or suspended under baseless pretexts such as insulting the consumer.

The case here pertained to the suspension of an executive engineer in Kurukshetra who was responsible for bringing down the commercial losses from more than 20 % to 9.33% with 100% collection efficiency, but was punished for no fault of his, they said.

Stating that in this case, the executive engineer had ordered to disconnect the domestic metre of a consumer, who happened to be a former MLA and whose defaulting amount had reached more than Rs 80,000.
The association office-holders said the politician, made it a “prestige issue“ and suspended the official.

Dahiya and Singh further said it was shocking to observe that while the management of electricity distribution companies (discom), such as, Uttar Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam and Dakshin Haryana Bijli Vitran