Taking a serious note of the increasing incidence of power thefts in Jammu and Kashmir, the State Vigilance Commission today directed the government to take strict action in such cases.
"The State Vigilance Commission (SVC) has directed the Power Development department (PDD) to file FIR against those involved in electricity theft or illegal connection and progress of the investigation and trial be monitored," SVC spokesman said.
Currently, 258 vigilance complaints are pending with the state Power Development department.
The directive was announced at a high level meeting chaired by Kuldeep Khoda, Chief Vigilance Commissioner. Vigilance Commissioners R K Jerath, Gous-Ul-Nisa besides top officers of PDD and SVC, were also present in the meeting.
"The State Vigilance Commission convened a meeting to review the preventive vigilance system and pending corruption complaints of PDD," spokesman said.
The SVC has also decided to recommend to the government to earmark one police station each at Jammu and Srinagar for dealing with the offences under Electricity Act.
Viewing the pendency of the cases, SVC has decided that the 258 vigilance complaints under enquiry with PDD shall be "completed within 45 days".
"Further, to improve the enforcement of preventive vigilance, it was decided that the Departmental Vigilance Officers (DVO's) in respect of all engineering departments, henceforth, shall be the concerned Superintending Engineer of the district, instead of an Executive Engineer", he said.
The Commission 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.
Besides, procurement of material on exorbitant rates on the pretext of emergency be avoided, he said, adding that instead of the fast moving spares required by the department, a rate contract should be fixed for the year.
The HODs of the department were directed to personally look into the complaints regarding power theft, illegal connections and procurement of substandard material for different works, the spokesman added.
