FARIDABAD, Nov 24 — Want to tamper with your power meter? Just dial a mobile phone number and the work will be done.

The racket came to light following the arrest of eight persons with two mobile phones by the Vigilance Department of Dakshin Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam Limited (DHBVN).

According to senior officials of the department, raids have been conducted at about 35 places in the town on information provided by the arrested persons. It is learnt that the two cell phones (9811209832 and 9811098671) belonging to Rajvir and Udhaybhan have been seized and 1,600 phone numbers of “clients” whose meters had been tampered with or “adjusted” by the accused found.

A team consisting of DSP (Vigilance) Mahender Singh and an XEN of the nigam raided certain places on clues provided by the accused and arrested Mukesh, Sunil, Suresh and Prempal.

The telephone numbers of the “clients” were traced to Faridabad and Gurgaon districts.

The nigam has imposed a total fine of Rs 10 lakh so far on the “clients”. About 35 addresses found on the basis of phone numbers have been checked and checking of more places is underway.

The accused have revealed various methods adopted by them to tamper with the meters. These methods include making a small opening in the front glass of the meter and after reverting the reading, closing the same with “M-Seal”. According to the second method, the meter reading was altered after making an opening from below the meter. The instrument was put in the upside down position.

Under the third method, a loop of wire was inserted by opening the main seal and the meter speed reduced with the help of the loop. Yet another technique was placing a loop by opening the meter from its base.

Another trick was to place an ‘on-off’ switch on the incoming wire to regulate meter reading at ease.

The accused would charge a sum of Rs 700 to Rs 1500 for reverting about 1000 units of power. The racket was reportedly started by Suresh Kataria of the local NIT area. He was joined by Udhaybhan Gupta, Rajvir, Mukesh, Prempal, Kamal Pandey, Sunil and Yashpal.