Letter after letter, but no FIR a year after embezzlement
LUCKNOW: Even as one alleged fraud after another surfaces in the power sector, the authorities are still exchanging letters for lodging an FIR in connection with more than a year old case of embezzlement and criminal conspiracy, missives between officials indicate.
In this case, the staff allegedly misappropriated crores of rupees received from consumers in the adjoining Barabanki.
The Uttar Pradesh Power Corporation Ltd has also failed to trace the remaining around 200 cashbook receipts against which revenue was recovered from consumers for various purposes like new electricity connections, system loading charges, bill payment, though the money was not deposited in the exchequer, insiders say.
Now, superintending engineer (SE), Barabanki, RP Singh has written yet another letter to executive engineer, Fatehpur electricity distribution division in Barabanki, asking him to lodge an FIR against all those found guilty of committing the fraud and submit a report on action taken for recovery of the missing cashbooks and receipts.
The executive engineer’s office was first asked to lodge an FIR in the matter in September 2017.
The officials have been merely exchanging notes since.
“This is noteworthy that this office via letter no 4075 dated 13.9-2017 had directed your office to register an FIR against the staff found guilty of revenue embezzlement but no action has been taken by your office till date,” Singh says in the letter, asking the executive engineer, who was not posted there when the fraud took place to act within two days. Singh wrote the letter on October 10.
“I am yet to receive any action taken report,” Singh said over the phone from Barabanki.
“The matter is very serious and requires rapid action. Zonal accounts officer (ZAO), Faizabad, Sanjay Gupta has already conducted a departmental inquiry into the matter,” he said.
“The guilt of some employees was established and we submitted the report to the department long ago,” Gupta said. He claimed he was not able to recall details of the inquiry report.
The preliminary inquiry found that 400 receipts from eight cashbooks NO 126294, 12640, 126598, 126631, 12671, 126698 and 095791, were used to manually received payments from consumers but the money was never deposited back in the official accounts.
While 222 receipts against Rs 88,82,450 were recovered, the rest of the 278 receipts and the amount for which they were issued are still untraceable.
The department had suspended two employees on the basis of the preliminary findings.
Last month, the Uttar Pradesh Power Corporation Ltd (UPPCL) unearthed a scam in which hundreds of electricity tube well connections were given several blocks under the dark zones in Hathras district despite a ban there.
› The matter is very serious and requires rapid action. Zonal accounts officer Sanjay Gupta has conducted a departmental inquiry into the matter
RP SINGH, superintending engineer