At event run on stolen power, Khattar advises villagers to refrain from theft

While chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar was advising people to refrain from stealing electricity at Mokhra village in Rohtak on Saturday, ironically the event was allegedly being run partially on stolen power coming from a line clamped onto a nearby transformer.

While the officials first denied the allegations, they later put the entire blame of the power theft on the contractor who had arranged for the tent for the event after the shocking visuals of power theft surfaced on social media.

Uttar Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam (UHBVN) XEN Maninder Singh said they had arranged for generators for the programme that were being used to run coolers and air conditioners on the stage.

The XEN claimed the illegal line was used by the labourers of the contractor. “We conducted an investigation after watching the visuals and found that the line clamped onto the transformer was set up by the workers of Neel Kamal tenthouse which was given contract to arrange for the programme. The workers had set the illegal connection to run their coolers and pedestal fans besides the stage,” he said, while adding that the line illegally used was anyway not sufficient to provide power to stage.

The XEN said they had registered a case against the contractor and imposed a fine of Rs 40,000 on him.

Meanwhile, the event turned out to be a farce as the CM spent around 20 minutes during his speech in advising villagers to pay regular bills and refrain from stealing electricity, which is a common practice in rural Haryana.