An electrician of Firozabad district in Uttar Pradesh, angered by cops issuing him a challan of Rs.500 for not wearing a helmet while riding his motorcycle, retaliated in quite an unusual way. The electrician, Srinivas was stopped by sub inspector Ramesh Chandra while he was on his duty rounds to Badi Chapeti to repair a fault.
He was not wearing his helmet at that time and was hence issued a challan for Rs.500. His pleas for pardon fell on deaf ears, while Srinivas also made the cop speak to his junior engineer, but to no avail. Srinivas stated that he was unable to pay the fine of Rs 500 as his monthly income was only Rs. 6,000.
The linesman finally had to pay off the fine online. But then asked his fellow staff at the electricity office to check out pending power dues by the Linepar Police Station. It came to light that the said police station was a defaulter and had accumulated bills to the extent of Rs 6,62,463 since January 2016. Following this, Srinivas went on to disconnect power supply to the Linepar police station.
With the disconnection of electric supply, the station remained without electricity for around 4 hours. It was restored only after senior cops took up matter with electricity department officials.
When asked for explanations, Srinivas stated that it was due to the pending bills. While the cops had earlier explained about the rules of wearing a helmet and the penalty involved in not doing so, Srinivas explained the rules of paying power bills in time and the penalty its nonpayment attracts.
The bills had remained unpaid since January 2016. This was later confirmed by Sub divisional officer, DVVNL Firozabad district, Ranveer Singh, who also said this was despite several reminders sent. The Police however claim that Rs.1.15 crores was paid to the DVVNL for payment of electric bills for all the offices and police stations. The balance would also be cleared soon.
The police officials also complained that an excess load of 10 kW was fixed for the police station despite power consumption being low but the electric department countered this claim saying that peak load had reached 14 kW due to excess equipment being used at the police station.
The matter has not ended and the police state that they would follow up with a complaint to the electricity department authorities against the action taken by Srinivas about the disconnection without any notice.
