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P’kula power utility’s staffer booked for embezzling 1.6 cr

Hindustan Times, Chandigarh | By, Panchkula
Feb 28, 2020 01:10 AM IST

Allegedly issued bogus receipts, deleted entries of bill receipts and did not deposit cash received from consumers to the corporation’s account

Police have booked a man working as a meter reader at Uttar Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam (UHBVN) in Barwala for allegedly embezzling at least 1.6 crore by fudging records pertaining to power bills. A complaint in this regard was submitted by Barwala sub-division officer (SDO) Gopal Krishan against the accused identified as Gaurav Kumar, a resident of Kurukshetra.

The SDO, in his complaint, submitted that Kumar who was wilfully absent from duty since November 7, 2019, was assigned the duty of counter cashier from April 2018 to October 2019. The official stated that after joining the office on January 21 this year, he found that when Kumar was posted as a counter cashier, he had committed several irregularities. “He had deleted the entries of bill receipts from the corporation’s cash counter and computer software, issued bogus receipts and not deposited the cash received from consumers against their bills, thereby causing a huge loss of revenue to the discom,” read the FIR.

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Police said as per the SDO, the data of cancelled receipts of bills to the tune of 1.6 crore was collected from the computer installed for cash collection. It was further stated that some consumers had submitted the fake receipts handed over to them by the accused but on checking the credit card receipt (CCR) numbers for these, it was found that no entry of the amount prescribed in the receipts was entered in CCR by him.

Assistant sub-inspector (ASI) Rishi Pal, the investigating officer in the case, said that as per the SDO, the loss of bogus receipts cannot be ascertained by the office as there was no record of it. He said Kumar had already been issued a chargesheet by the Ambala superintending engineer last month and the matter was further reported to executive engineer, Panchkula. A case has been registered under Sections 409 (criminal breach of trust by public servant), 420 (cheating), 467 (forgery of valuable security, will, etc), 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating) and 471 (using as genuine a forged document or electronic record) of the Indian Penal Code at Chandimandir police station.

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