New Delhi, November 8, 2006

Press Release

 

Data analysis and mapping help BSES detect power theft in Hotels

Hotel Prince Palace caught using ingenious method to steal power

 

·         Hotel Prince Palace caught stealing  50 KW of power

·         An illegal ‘changeover switch’ installed at the Hotel’s Water Pump room to directly steal electricity

·         Direct theft done by Hotel between 8 am and 7 pm and on holidays

·         Third raid led to the discovery of the illegal ‘changeover switch’

·         Hotel staff offered bribe, in vain,  and then threatened assault

·         BSES begins mapping other hotels after this success and similar raids to continue

 

Stealing electricity to run business seems to be the motto of many. They not only lay many-km-long cable to stealthily consume electricity but also hoodwink power distributing companies by camouflaging infrastructure. It took BSES at least three raids to unearth one such thief – Paharganj’s Hotel Prince Palace - as all his electrical installations, including meters, otherwise seemed to be in order.

 

The Hotel had, however, not bargained for BSES’s state-of-the-art data analyzing technology. The use of this intelligent technology – which includes establishing consumption benchmarks, analysis of data stored in energy meters and conducting a post-mortem of billing database based on different logic, etc – led to the hotel being caught red-handed.

 

Providing details of the Hotel Prince Palace raid, an Enforcement Officer said: “Our first two raids yielded no results though we were perplexed as to why the hotel’s electricity consumption was so low – infact its recorded consumption was 80 percent less than that of similar hotels in the Paharganj area. We took the help of the Data Analysis Team and the Operation & Maintenance Team and on our third raid discovered how the hotel was stealing electricity.”

 

“Interestingly, Hotel Prince Palace – popular with low budget foreigners – consumed electricity only between 8 AM and 7  PM. It’s consumption on all holidays and night hours were almost nil. And every inspection found their meter to be okay. On our third visit, we were lucky. We stormed into the hotel and immediately Switched off the mains. To our surprise, we found all the lights and AC’s continued to function and were consuming 50 KW of electricity,” the officer said.

 

“Then began a two-hour long intensive search of the hotel premises. We were determined to locate the alternative source of electricity. We finally found that the hotel management had clandestinely camouflaged an alternative ‘free power’ source into a Changeover Switch in its Water Pump room. This changeover switch was fallaciously marked as a water pump switch. The game was over,” the officer added.

 

“Hotel Price Palace was clearly indulging in direct theft of electricity. A penalty of over Rs 17 lakh would be imposed on them,” said a BSES spokesperson while informing that the hotel management not only offered bribe to the raiding party but also threatened them with physical assault.

 

“Building intelligence into our enforcement process is paying rich dividends. It has emerged as a powerful tool for identifying and containing theft. Various methodologies are being successfully deployed. BSES teams have gathered fool proof data of many such hotels in the area and elsewhere and action will be taken against them in the coming weeks,” said an analyst of BSES’s Data Analysis Team. He informed that many hotels, restaurants, dry-cleaners etc are on our radar and their “sophisticated” methods to steal electricity would be unearthed.

 

BSES, Delhi’s premier power distribution company, is committed to ensuring quality and reliable electricity supply to all its consumers.

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For further information please contact:

Prashant Dua	Chandra P Kamat
Corporate Communications	Corporate Communications
39999870 / 9312007822	39999088/9350130304