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K S MANOJKUMAR
AURANGABAD, Feb 2: For the second time in the last six months, senior MSEB officials raided the Amar Ameet Steel Alloys plant at Badnapur in Jalna district and detected power theft to the tune of more than Rs 1.04 crore.
An earlier raid on the same plant, conducted in August 98, had revealed power theft of more than Rs 3.07 crore. The Aurangabad bench of the Bombay High Court which heard the August raid case had ruled in favour of the plant which is owned by Bharat Demanda. The MSEB was directed to restore power supply to the plant. Sunday's raid which lasted nearly 24 hours revealed that Demanda had resumed filching power almost as soon as the electricity supply was restored to his plant following the court order of September 15, 1998. The directors of the plant, Demanda and Sanjay Kherkad, are absconding, police sub-inspector S S Deshmukh told The Indian Express.
The Badnapur police station has registered a case under Sections 39, 44 and 50 of the Indian Electricity Act and Section 3(1) of thePrevention of Damage to Public Property Act 1984.
Superintendent Engineer R B Kulkarni, who was part of the raiding team, said the security personnel at the plant tried to block the officials' entry. It was only with help of the police that they could make their way through the gates, he added. The plant, like most other steel plants in Jalna, is built like a fortress, making it difficult for any raiding squad to enter the premises without the use of force, officials said. Kulkarni said the check meter installed inside the building showed that as much as 75 per cent of the power supply to the plant was not registered.
Meanwhile, Jalna Superintendent of Police Devan Bharati talking to The Indian Express, said he had accorded top priority to investigation in the case and was confident that the culprits would be nabbed soon. He also said that the recurrence of the power theft within such a short time could not have been possible without the collusion of senior MSEB officials. ``We are also planning tointerrogate MSEB officials in this connection, Bharati said.The public relations officer of the MSEB, when contacted on Monday, claimed to have no knowledge of the incident.
Copyright © 1999 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
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