The enforcement wing of the Tamil Nadu Electricity Board (TNEB) has successfully nailed a large company based in Madurai stealing energy worth Rs 7.55 crore over a period of nine months. This is the first time in several years, the TNEB has caught a consumer ccommitting power theft of such a massive scale.

V Balachandran, ADGP (Vigilance), TNEB, told Express that, based on intelligence inputs, enforcement officials made an inspection of a high tension consumer, the Tower Steel Industries in Kappalur, Madurai, on Monday. “Our officials found that power was being stolen by short circuiting the meter set of the current tranformer secondary terminals,” he said.

After provisional assessment, it was found that power to the tune of Rs.7.55 crore (charges for actual usage plus a two-fold fine component) had been stolen. “The consumer has not come forward to pay the provision assessment fee. We have now filed a police compliant with the Tirumangalam police,’’ he said.

Power theft by the company had come to the Board’s attention on four earlier occasions in Tamil Nadu, and twice in Karaikal.

Asked how the team managed to stumble upon the errant company, Balachandran said the vigilance team always monitored the consumption pattern of all high tension users. “We have intelligence inputs too. With regard to this company, it has been under our surveillance and many cases of power theft are pending against them in courts.’’ The energy was stolen by shortcircuiting electricity cables that connect with the metering box to record consumption. In this way, the consumer continued to use energy that was not recorded.