APDCL's Vigilance team confiscating, TV, refrigerator, appliances used by hooking electric supply

To put a stop to the unauthorised electricity consumption, the vigilance team of Assam Power Distribution Corporation Limited (APDCL) inspects the supply of electricity to households and offices from time to time. On Tuesday, July 6, under the direction of the Assam Government, the APDCL’s vigilance team in collaboration with the local police has launched a campaign starting from Pailapool to Joypur in the Cachar district, where several households were raided and unfathomable access to electricity was disconnected.

The vigilance team along with the police visited certain residences of this region where electricity bills are pending for months and unauthorised consumption of electricity is still going on. Following a raid, they confiscated electric appliances like fans, TVs, refrigerators, electric bulbs and lights, etc.

The vigilance team from Silchar that visited included AGM Arijit Das, Senior Vigilance Officer Tarun Chandra Das, Manabendra Dhar, SDO of the Lakhipur Sub-division Uttaran Chakraborty, SMR Shyam Sundar Singh and many other departmental officials. In this campaign, the customers who were apprehended due to non-payment of pending bills of electricity like Basanti Dhube, Joy Prakash Goala, Pradeep Goala, Sarat Singh, Shyam Kishore Singh, Ebentambi Singh and Kamini Singh, were secretly and unauthorisedly using electricity.

While talking about this campaign, APDCL Cachar division AGM, Nitish Nath, said, “This is nothing new and we have been doing such inspection for decades now. People who have pending electricity bills for months, and are still using without any authorisation are mainly bound to answer to such inspections. In today’s campaign that happened under the Lakhipur Sub-division, those families were using electricity secretly to run their home appliances without clearing their due bills.”

He added, “So in order to stop such unauthorised use of electricity, the APDCL vigilance team seized certain electric appliances from their houses. This is a usual routine inspection, and the appliances collected are called ‘Seizure list’. It has been brought to our notice that even after disconnecting electricity lines for certain consumers due to non-payment of bills, they still somehow manage to get access to power without clearing their due bills. Hence, their electric appliances get seized so that when they clear their dues, those appliances could be returned to them. This process is to ensure that unauthorised use of electricity by consumers take place.”