UHBVN suffers Rs 35-lakh loss

Rajinder Nagarkoti

Tribune News Service

Panchkula, April 8

Uttar Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam (UHBVN), one of the two power discoms monitoring electricity billings of nine districts of Haryana, not only suffered cyber attack, but also employees of an agency, which was allotted the work of electricity meter reading in Panchkula, cheated the Nigam. The UHBVN suffered a loss of Rs 35 lakh, which can be increased in the coming days.

The Nigam has lodged an FIR against two employees - Parveen Kumar, a resident of Baltana, and Kulbir Singh, a resident of Sector 9, Panchkula, of M/S Haryana Ex-Servicemen League (HESL).

As per the complaint lodged by Nigam officials at the Sector 14 police station, it was stated that HESL was awarded the contract by the UHBVN for bill distribution and meter reading in Rajiv Colony, Indira Colony and other areas of Panchkula from 2007 to 2017.

As per the contract, HESL deployed its employees for meter reading and bill distribution of power consumers of Indira Colony and Rajiv Colony, Panchkula. Most of the reading taken by employees of HESL was less than the actual display of reading on the meter that resulted into accumulation of reading. Due to accumulation of reading, the bills issued to Rajiv and Indira Colony consumers were high value bills.

In the complaint, it was stated that the loss incurred by the Nigam due to accumulation of reading is tentatively around Rs 35 lakh, which may increase after audit assessment.

As the UHBVN had issued these high value bills, residents of these colonies had recently staged a protest, including lockup of the UHBVN division office. The police were called to control the situation.

On the complaint of UHBVN officials, the police have lodged an FIR against these two employees under Sections 120-B (criminal conspiracy), 406 (criminal breach of trust) and 420 (forgery) of IPC.

A senior police official said they had lodged an FIR and started investigations.