Twenty-eight-year-old BSES engineer Abhimanyu Singh had gone to south Delhi’s Najafgarh last week to inspect cases of power theft when the residents surrounded his team and chased their vehicle while brandishing iron rods.
The chase ended after the vehicle rammed a tree killing Mr. Singh and injuring four other employees of the power discom.
This might have been the first time that a routine power theft inspection resulted in the death of a discom official, but discom teams are regularly threatened on the job.
‘Mindset issue’
In two separate incidents in 2014, discom inspectors were beaten up with iron rods and tied up and urinated on when they caught residents stealing electricity.
Explaining the plight of the workers on duty, a BSES electrician said, “In many areas, especially in west Delhi, consumers indulge in power theft, not because they don’t have money, but because it is the mindset. They just don’t want to pay. Areas such as Najafgarh are among the worst to be working in.”
In a statement, the BSES had said that “efforts of discom teams to check the irregularities are often thwarted by law-defying people who function like organised gangs. Whenever teams reach these ‘sensitive’ areas, unscrupulous elements ‘gherao’ them and obstruct officials in imparting their duties”.
BSES teams often come under attack from the unscrupulous elements, the company added, saying that the Delhi Police officials have to accompany inspectors to avoid such attacks.
The theft leads to severe overloading of the distribution system also affecting the overall supply. Government data shows that losses incurred because of power thefts in the city has come down from around 55% in 2002 to around 15% in 2016.
Nearly 60% of all power theft cases in the Capital is reported from Najafgarh, Burari, Bawana, Seelampur, Seemapuri, Azadpur, and Mahavir Enclave.
In the last five years, over 30,000 cases of power theft — having a connected load of around 40,000 KW — have been reported in Delhi.
Power experts said that the city discoms lose anywhere between ₹1,000 crore and ₹1,500 crore annually because of power theft.
Could power New York
As per the Central Electricity Authority, over 27% of all power produced in India is either lost due to dissipation from wires or theft. That’s about 261,130 Gigawatt/hour of power annually — enough to light up New York for nearly two years — worth nearly ₹1 trillion at an average electricity rate of ₹4 per unit.
