Punjab Power Minister Gurpreet Singh Kangar on Thursday issued directions to the State power utility, Punjab State power corporation Limited (PSPCL) to expedite the proceedings of disciplinary cases to bring the guilty to the book.
At the same time, the Minister has directed to hand over the punishment to those guilty commensurate with severity of misconduct and irregularities. That was not all, he has also asked the PSPCL authorities to follow up with the police authorities at the highest level to get FIRs registered in pending cases and accelerate investigation in FIRs already registered to expose culprits and their misdeeds to take the matter to its logical conclusion.
The directions were issued in the wake of a latest multi-crore fraud in the power utility, that was reported recently, involving an amount of Rs 5.32 crores, against Rs 250 crores as reported in the press, out of which Rs 3.65 crores stand recovered.
The reports stated that PSPCL suffers a loss of Rs 250 crore for meter tempering, in past five years in different cities.
Taking note, the Minister sought a report into the matter, according to which, certain unscrupulous officials of sub-divisions at Patiala, Malerkotla, Nabha, Sangrur, Barnala and Ludhiana, in connivance with some consumers, made reversal entries in the billing account in the computerized billing system.
The Minister said that PSPCL has been invariably vigorously following up any case of fraud that comes to light and invariably police is asked to register FIR and in addition departmental proceedings are initiated against errant officials, along with all out efforts to recover the amount of loss.
“The case of bill reversal of West, Model Town division Patiala surfaced in 2016 and based on preliminary inquiry, PSPCL suspended nine officials including one SDO found to be prima facie involved. Moreover, CE (South Zone) wrote to Police authorities on September 12, 2016, to register an FIR and also ask IT wing of Punjab Police to conduct thorough probe in all SAP towns,” he said.
He pointed that the matter was initially investigated by Punjab Police’s Cyber Crime Cell and the same had finally registered FIR on July 19, 2017 against delinquent officers or officials.
He said that a total of Rs 532.37 lakhs fraud was committed at eight offices, out of which an amount of Rs 364.66 lakhs has been recovered till date.
“Full recoveries have been made for frauds committed at West Division, Patiala, Sherpur 1 Sub Division and Sunder Nagar 1&2, Ludhiana, and an amount of Rs three crore against total amount of Rs 3.72 crore has already been recovered at Sahnewal Sub Division, Ludhiana,” he said.
PSPCL chairman-cum-managing director Baldev Singh Sran said that some of the possible reasons of frauds or irregularities in SAP have been highlighted by investigation agencies.
“Special audit of all reversal entries is being carried out. As follow up, instructions have been circulated to stop single step alteration of entry or transaction in SAP system, certain transfer codes have been disabled; and like banks, two-stage customer relationship management (CRM) process has been implemented in which cashier on daily basis will initiate reversal process and concerned RA/SDO will approve,” he said.
Sran said that for reversal of any debit entry, RA will initiate reversal process and concerned SDO will approve. Moreover, on transfer, officers or officials have to forgo the right of access to domain that was under their charge and acquire new rights as per their new posting, he said.
Besides, a Committee of officers has been constituted to suggest improvement in IT system to avoid such scams.