Rania INLD MLA, 5 others booked for power theft
The Dakshin Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam on Thursday lodged a police case against an Indian National Lok Dal MLA from Rania (district Sirsa) Krishan Kamboj and a few others for power theft. The DHBVN officials told HT that Rania police had registered an FIR against Kamboj and five other accused consumers for violation of provisions of the Electricity Act – 2003.
The Dakshin Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam on Thursday lodged a police case against an Indian National Lok Dal MLA from Rania (district Sirsa) Krishan Kamboj and a few others for power theft.
The DHBVN officials told HT that Rania police had registered an FIR against Kamboj and five other accused consumers for violation of provisions of the Electricity Act – 2003.
The DHBVN officials said that Kamboj was alleged to have been found leading a few consumers to directly connect the cables of consumers to the distribution system of the DHBVN by bypassing their electricity meters in village Mattuwala, hence the police case against him and accused consumers.
The concerned sub divisional officers of the DHBVN had complained that the MLA and others had allegedly destroyed the incoming cables of the DHBVN connecting the meters of consumers on the poles and connected the service cables of consumers to the system of the Nigam by bypassing the meters at village Mattuwala.
The MLA had allegedly tampered the system of the Nigam which is violation of the provisions of the Electricity Act. The DHBVN had thus made cases of theft of electricity against five consumers of the village. Penalty against the consumers was being calculated, the officials said and added that the other accused consumers were Naurang, Rameshwari Devi, Chander Bhan, Rai Sahib and Hem Raj.
However, when contacted, Kamboj vehemently refuted the charges and held that there was anguish among consumers in the village for excessive billing and it was the consumers who had directly connected their connections bypassing the meters and not him.
However, the power officials held that since such actions tended to lead to create lawlessness, the DHBVN would take strict action against any person involved in such act against the law and damaging public property. ``This is an act of encouraging theft of electricity’’, a senior official said.
The officials also held that bills pertaining to all the five consumers were less then than Rs 2,000 each and there was no accumulation of reading and any other complaint of the consumers relating to billing. Out of total 264 domestic consumers in the village, the bimonthly bills of only four consumers are above Rs 5,000. The Nigams were making all out efforts to redress all type of complaints of consumers by providing them various easy means of lodging complaints, they added.