JE suspended for Rs 50 lakh loss to electricity board

At a time when the HP State Electricity Board Limited (HPSEBL) is battling its worst financial crisis , a Junior Engineer(JE) posted at Baddi has been suspended for causing loss of around Rs 50 lakh to the power board.

In a bid to unduly benefit an industrial house, the officer changed the current transformer and potential transformer energy meter used to measure total power usage of the unit in July 2023. This led to lower reading per month, thus causing a finacial loss of around Rs 1.5 lakh per month to the HPSEBL.

Any such change is supposed to be communicated to a senior official. “It was a random examination of the meter by a team of meter and testing staff which detected this laxity. The unit was billed 33 per cent less than actual usage of power. As per the board officials, a loss of around Rs 50 lakh has been caused in a one-and-a-half year,”said an official.

The JE, who has been posted in Baddi since the last eight to 10 years, has been suspended and directed to report at the board’s Shimla office. He was entrusted the task of key industrial houses of the Baddi industrial cluster. His exceptionally long stay in this industrial belt has put a question mark over the board’s working.

Rakesh Thakur, Chief Engineer, HPSEBL, said the board had taken serious note of this case and more industrial units would be examined to ensure there was no ambiguity.

The erring industrial unit would be peaniled after assessment of the entire loss, he added.