The Delhi government has been directed by a court here to prepare modalities to create legal recharging stations for e-rickshaws to stop electricity theft in the national capital.
Additional Sessions Judge Swarana Kanta Sharma asked the Power Secretary of Delhi to file compliance report within 15 days regarding the steps taken in this regard while noting that there were no authorised recharging stations for e-rickshaws which leads to theft of electricity causing heavy loss to the state revenue.
“In Delhi, theft of electricity is being committed at various places for recharging the batteries of e-rickshaw by tapping LV (low voltage) mains, causing heavy loss to state revenue. Such cases of theft of electricity by unscrupulous persons result in passing on the burden of enhanced tariff on the honest electricity consumers of Delhi,” the court said.
“I deem it appropriate to direct Secretary (Power), Delhi to prepare plan and modalities to create legal recharging station for recharging e-rickshaws to stop the theft of electricity in the state of Delhi,” the judge said.
No authorised places
In its order, the court also noted there were innumerable cases pending before it where it has been found that illegal charging of e-rickshaw batteries was going on in Delhi at places which were unauthorised for this purpose.
It further noted that unlike petrol filling stations for other vehicles, there were no authorised recharging stations for e-rickshaws here.
The court passed the order in an electricity theft case against Titu, a resident of Jahangir Puri, who was held guilty of committing theft of electricity through NDPL LV mains in 2014.
It was alleged that no electricity meter was found installed at the site and a load of 15.790 KW was connected for commercial purpose during the inspection.