VIJAYAWADA: Power thefts across the State have become rampant these days. Consumers are tampering meters, direct tapping, etc. to reduce electricity bills. As far as Vijayawada is concerned, since January 2017, over 13,000 power theft cases have been registered at an estimated loss of Rs 5.9 crores till August 16.
Of the total cases, 8,115 cases have been closed after imposing a penalty and regularising them. Through penalty, Rs 3.2 crores have been recovered from the estimated loss. 5, 493 cases are still pending, which entails a penalty worth Rs 2.7 crores.
In the operational section of Vijayawada circle, a large number of cases were registered in May with 2,237 cases amounting to Rs 91 lakh worth power theft. Similarly, in the month of April, 1,959 cases were registered. Officials cite that majority of the power theft cases are developmental cases, where customers use additional load without going for upgradation of usage limit.
Speaking to Express, Superintending Engineer N Venkateswarlu said, “In urban areas, people are either tampering meters or using additional load. In rural areas, direct tapping and pilferage of energy cases have significantly risen. Our teams are conducting inspections on a day-to-day basis. We have booked cases against the offenders and imposed penalties for a year. In some cases, home connections were being used for commercial purposes. Even they are being made to pay the penalty.”
He further said that people must realise that every tapping or tampering of meters or any other kind of power theft gets recorded in the department servers.
“Whatever malpractice they do, we will charge fine for a year. If people are found cheating the department during the inspection, a huge penalty will be imposed which they have to pay at any cost,” he added.
Due to the malpractices and pilferage cases, the electricity board is losing almost Rs 70 lakhs to Rs 1 crore revenue every month. This month, till August 16, 1,143 cases were registered amounting to Rs 67.95 lakh.
Though the officials are recovering the amount with penalties, a majority of the cases are taking a long time to get cleared.