Jammu and Kashmir Government has extended amnesty scheme for domestic electricity consumers up to 31st March. The scheme was announced by the Power Development Department (PDD) in 2012 to curb power theft in the state. The Cabinet in its meeting chaired by Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti had approved the extension of scheme on Monday. Power theft has remained one of the impediments in the financial health of the department. Even earlier also the government had announced amnesty and there was not much of enthusiasm among the power consumers. Despite metering of the power consumption people even now also have not declared their actual power needs and nefarious would prefer to use air conditioners during summers and hot plates for cooking during winters when there is a shortage of LPG cylinder by keeping the meter readers or the line men in ‘good humour’. In August 2015, the then Mufti Mohmmad Sayeed government had extended the scheme up to December 2016. The government had received numerous representations that a substantial number of domestic consumers for various reasons could not avail the benefits of the Amnesty scheme. Alarmed by the mounting number of electricity theft cases in the State, Vigilance Commission had few years back directed the government to register criminal cases against those engaged in power theft in the State. The decision was taken at a high-level meeting chaired by Kuldeep Khoda, Chief Vigilance Commissioner and attended by Vigilance Commissioners-R. K Jerath and Gous-Ul-Nisa– besides top officers of PDD and SVC. Due to large number of theft cases, the Commission also decided to recommend to the government to earmark one police station each at Jammu and Srinagar for dealing with offences under Electricity Act. The Commission also directed that e-tendering for works and procurement should be strictly enforced and any wrong tender filed should be rejected without entertaining any undue representations. The heads of the department were directed to personally look into the complaints regarding power theft, illegal connections and procurement of substandard material for different works. One hopes the slow pace of modernisation of power distribution and metering introduced few years back is completed so that the State can look forward to a better revenue collection but pilferage of power will still remain a hurdle.
