GEB south Gujarat revenue peaks on power theft raids

A campaign against power theft has lifted the revenue of the Gujarat Electricity Board's (GEB) south Gujarat zone to an all-time high of Rs 334.46 crore in October.

The company, which launched the campaign in August 2002, has collected over Rs 2,175 lakh from power theft cases between April 2003 and October 2003.

"Power theft has remained the bane of the south Gujarat zone for many years," says Surat zone chief engineer P R Chaudhary.

From the south Gujarat region, the GEB recovered Rs 508 lakh between April 2002 and August 2002. The recovery figure went up to Rs 430.23 lakh between September 2002 and October 2003. The revenue has also gone up from Rs 262.85 crore in August 2002 to Rs 334. 46 crore in October 2003.

Between April and October in the current fiscal, the GEB had checked 1,38,175 connections in Valsad, Surat and Bharuch regions.

Power theft was detected in 9,694 connections and a total of Rs 2,175 lakh was recovered.

"During our raids we have come across interesting examples of to what extent people can go to steal power," Chaudhary said.

In some cases people had set up "local distribution" companies by selling power connections and distribution in areas under their control.

In several cases, people had connected wires directly from the GEB network to their overhead tanks to get hot water free of charge.

Geologist office collects Rs 11 crore royalty in January

The Surat District Geologist Office has posted a record royalty collection of Rs 11 crore in January.

Royalty income from April to December 2003 was at Rs 19 crore against Rs 3.59 crore from April to December 2002.

"We have initiated action against several royalty evaders and detected over 546 cases of royalty evasion. Till date we have recovered fines and penalty of Rs 19.75 lakh," Surat Geologist B S Dave said. Most of the evasion involved sand and "kapchi" businessmen.

In January 14 cases of royalty evasion were detected and a fine of Rs 70,000 was collected. Legal action has been initiated against 17 leaseholders for having faulty royalty passes.

The department collected over Rs 41,000 through checkings carried out last week at Sarthana, Kamrej and Kim in east and north Surat.

"In a couple of hours we seized over 11 trucks illegally transporting sand, grit, kapchi and blackstrap and collected a fine of Rs. 41,000," Dave said.