Lesa struggles to identify city’s katiyabaaz

LUCKNOW: ‘Katiya’ or unauthorized electricity connection may be the most common and visible form of power theft in the city, which causes up to 30% line losses, but Lesa’s anti-power theft drive is yet to identify and bring to book the city’s ‘katiyabaaz’.
Curiously, Lesa has only been able to discover 1,255 katiya connections in ten Lesa circles during a drive spanning over more than a month.What’s more intriguing is that Old City localities, which account extremely high on line losses, are almost ‘katiya-free’ zones if figures are to be believed.
In Chowk, the drive could find only 10 katiya connections and in Thakurganj, just 11. Aminabad is an exception in the Old City where more than 430 katiya connections were removed.
The drive, which started on January 12, saw 582 of the 1,255 consumers paying the compounding fee and getting their connections regularized. Lesa also lodged FIR against more than 360 consumers using katiya.
Uptron area near Aishbagh accounted for maximum 50.7% line losses last year, but the drive has found zero katiya connections in Aishbagh, Uptron and Rajajipuram.
Old City areas like Aminabad, Thakurganj, Aishbagh, Chowk, Daliganj, Rahimnagar, University, Residency and outskirts like Malihabad and Bakshi ka Talab are the concern areas when it comes to line losses. But katiya is a rare feature in these localities as per the official figures.
Lucknow reports around 30% line losses in a year and katiya is the most rampant form of power theft, but officers in Lesa said it is difficult to identify consumers using it. “Each time they (consumers) come to know of checking teams, they remove the katiya and hook it on again when the team leaves,” said an officer.
“To identify the unauthorized consumers, we need to track each and every connection drawn from the pole which is a time-taking process. But we are doing it,” said Lesa chief engineer SK Verma.
“People who were using katiya till now may not have been disclosing this. But they are quietly applying for new connections now. More connections have been issued in areas with high katiya usage,” he said.