Saroor
Jammu, Dec 08: Initiating strict action against those involved in the power theft and the defaulters, who failed to deposit the outstanding dues despite several reminders, Jammu and Kashmir administration to take media on board and publish all such names and bring them in the public domain.
“The Electricity Corporation will soon initiate strict action against those involved in power theft and all such power connections who have failed to deposit the bills for three consecutive months will be disconnected and the power supply shall resume only after deposition of the bills in one go,” official sources said.
They said that the publishing names of all such defaulters in the newspapers are also under consideration.
“The Power Distribution Corporation teams are already on job for the last few months to curb power theft vis-a-vis recovering outstanding bills across Jammu and Kashmir,” sources added.
They said that FIRs are also likely to be registered against those involved in power theft following which names will be published in newspapers.
“Despite several appeals and awareness drives, many consumers have not paid heed to the department and taking cognizance of such cases, strict action is to be initiated against them in the coming days including registration of FIRs,” sources revealed.
They said that the engineering wing has been assigned the task of carrying videography of defaulters and those into power theft for using it as evidence at the time of getting FIR registered against the consumers.
Sources added that thousands of cases of electricity theft have been reported during campaigns conducted in the valley since November.
“During this period, a fine of more than Rs 2.5 crore was imposed by the Electricity Corporation and till date, Kashmir Power Distribution Corporation has recovered more than Rs 90 crore from consumers for electricity theft and non-payment of outstanding bills while the load has also been increased by more than 3000 KWs,” they added.
Similarly, sources said that a similar campaign was conducted in various districts of Jammu division and a number of consumers were found who had not paid the outstanding electricity bills.
“Consumers have started depositing the bills after strict action was started against them by the department, which is already facing financial burden and to overcome it, regular deposition of bills is mandatory to fulfil the dream of 24×7 power supply across the Union Territory,” said an official.
