Official sources said on Thursday that the connections were snapped as part of a recovery drive which lasted for nearly a week. Power connections of those who had not paid the bills for the period ranging from two months to a couple of years were also disconnected, the sources added.

They said that out of the total connections disconnected, about 30 were to the industrial units located in the GIDC. According to the sources, the move had sent shivers among the defaulters, prompting a few to pay dues to avoid disconnection. One defaulter paid up Rs 85,000 on Wednesday, they added.

The connections were snapped on the orders of the Board's GIDC office.Board chairman Nalin Bhatt had on Tuesday warned that the GEB had decided to take stern action against defaulters. The GEB, besides recovering fine from defaulters while snapping connections, has also been filing police cases against the defaulters.

The Board has also asked the State Government to introduce a special act to recover dues from habitual offenders. The sources said that similar drives were likely to be conducted in different parts of the city to recover the dues.

A few months ago, the Board had also forwarded the proposal to the State Government to book habitual pilferers under the Prevention of Anti-Social Activities Act (PASA). However, owing to some technical problems, the proposal has not been see the light of the day yet.

At a recent Press conference Bhatt had said that Board would make the best possible use of its powers to take stringent action against habitual pilferers. And in a recent drive conducted on the Vadodara-Surat highway, the Board snapped connections of several hotels which had pilfered power.

The drive is part of the Board's efforts to reduce transmission and distribution losses. According to highly placed sources, there are hundreds of persons in the agricultural and industrial sectors, who draw power directly from the main lines. And Bhatt has already announced that he also intended to launch a drive against bogus connections.