‘Discoms in Haryana passing off power theft as sales to farmers’

Senior IAS officer Ashok Khemka has written to the finance and electricity departments of the Haryana government, pointing out that power distribution companies in the State were trying to pad off power theft as sales to farmers. Mr. Khemka, who is currently Principal Secretary, Archaeological Department (Haryana), has written to both the departments, stating that the “Haryana Electricity Regulatory Commission (HERC) has been admitting inflated claims of discoms for agriculture pumpset (AP) sales to farmers, burdening the public with huge Rural Energy (RE) subsidies. This public fraud is unfortunately not contested by the government before the HERC. The great fudge enables the discoms to claim over 9,200 million units (MU) as total AP sales and receive RE subsidy of ₹6,900 crore from the government without a murmur, helping the discoms to pad off power theft as sales to farmers.”