Power theft: PSPCL collects Rs 6 cr in fines

In the drive to check power theft, the Punjab State Power Corporation Limited (PSPCL) collected fines of more than  Rs 6 crore in the Ludhiana central zone from April onwards. Of this, Rs 4.39 crore is from rural areas alone and that too from June 10 onwards.

Chief engineer (PSPCL) Rachpal Singh said that between June 10 and June 30, about 7,009 agriculture connections were checked, of which 18 were found guilty of power theft. They were fined Rs 21. 61 lakh while 4,591 were found with undeclared load on whom penalty of Rs 4.18 crore was imposed.

In addition to this even from April 1 – June 30, more than 23,000 domestic as well as commercial connections were checked, of which 484 were power theft cases on which Rs 1.27 crores fine was imposed while Rs 57.33 lakh was penalty for not declaring load. He also said that the voluntary disclosure scheme(VDS) which started from May 16, will continue till July 31.