Drive against power thefts gets a punch despite attacks on staff

ALWAR: Braving political pressure, physical assault and transfer threats, the power loss reduction programme of Jaipur Vidyut Vitran Nigam Limited (JVVNL) is running robustly in Alwar with a 104% success rate in the first seven months of the current fiscal.

A junior engineer and two linesmen were beaten up when they exposed power theft at Bantkhani village of Neemrana block on Saturday.Two weeks earlier, a junior engineer and a linesman were manhandled in Motuka village of Bansur block. Although FIRs have been lodged in both the cases, no action has been taken.

Exposure of electricity theft has direct consequences on employees of Jaipur discom. A former BJP minister had threatened junior engineers and superintending engineers to shut the case in Bansur, threatening to get them transferred if they proceed with their complaint.

“We were given a target to expose 11,441 power theft cases in this financial year. From April till October 31, we have found 11,937 cases of power theft... We’ll continue to work like this and hopefully, become number one in stopping power theft in Rajasthan,” said superintending engineer MM Kurmi.

Rajasthan Engineers Association spokesperson JP Sharma and Rajasthan Bijli Workers Federation president Gajraj Singh alleged interference by ruling party leaders into the noble initiative. They claimed to submit various memorandums to Alwar SP but to no avail.