Port Blair, Jan 16: The Chief Secretary, Andaman & Nicobar Administration, Shri Jitendra Narain today directed a team of Port Management Board, Electricity Department and DSS officials to conduct a raid in Haddo and Junglighat areas on the utilisation of shore power provided by ALHW to private ships.
The raid was conducted after it was informed that certain officials of ALHW working in the port in connivance with the ship owners were tampering with the electricity meters installed and thus, were enabling the private ship owners from paying lesser amounts as electricity bills than what was being consumed.
During the raid, it was noticed that there were major discrepancies in provision of shore supply connections to private ships. The matter had come to the notice of the foreman of PMB who saw that the meters installed for the ships of one particular private owner were not readable and the data was missing. Further, the meters were installed by the private ship owners themself. It was noticed that in Phoenix Bay, some of the energy meters provided by the ship owners were pre-programmed and not as per the Current Transformer installed. Hence, the actual billing of electrical energy being utilized was not being done. This resulted in a huge loss in revenue to the PMB. It was also noticed that an illegal shore supply connection was provided to a contractor of ALHW without the permission of PMB and because of this discrepancy, there was a huge revenue loss to PMB.
The matter is being further enquired into in order to root out the source of the tampering. The Chief Secretary directed that the strictest action possible should be taken against the violators so that the menace of corruption can be weeded out and there is no revenue loss to the Administration, a press release from Secretary (Shipping/PMB) said.
