The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

COURTS

18 defaulting factories sealed under revenue recovery campaign
Our Correspondent

Greater Noida, March 27
The district administration has sealed 18 factories in last three days and issued notices to 36 factory owners under the special revenue recovery campaign. An amount of Rs.1.25 crore has been recovered so far in the ongoing campaign.

In case there is no response from the owners of these factories, these will also be sealed and the proprietors sent to jail, said the Additional District Magistrate, Mr Yoginder Yadav.

A large number of factory owners in Greater Noida owe crores of rupees to the UP Financial Corporation, the Power Corporation, the Trade Tax Department, the PICUP etc.

Even though these defaulters have repeatedly been issued notices in the past, they have chosen to ignore them.

Now we intend to take strict action against all such defaulters and raids will be conducted on their units, said Mr Yadav. The help of the local intelligence unit was also being taken to trace those who have absconded. The officers of the Revenue Department along with the Naib Tehsildars are also being taken during these raids so as to recover the revenue on the spot if necessary.

Police illegally power their posts

Dadri: The custodians of law are stealing power to keep their police posts lighted. Not long ago, the Telecom Department had disconnected the phones in most of the police posts and even some of the police stations in Ghaziabad and G B Nagar districts for not having paid their bills for long periods.

Now it seems the Police Department is not in a position to pay its electricity bills. It is learnt that some of the police posts whose power connections have been disconnected do not even have proper electric meters. Overhead wire has been hooked to steal power in the police post of Dadri Kotwali.

The Electricity Department records show that none of the eight police posts in the city have legal power connections or have installed electric meters. However, the engineers and the line staff of the Power Corporation find themselves helpless because “they are not jhuggi dwellers but policemen, who have all the powers with them” to steal power from the overhead cables. The Electricity Department has suffered loss to the tune of lakhs of rupees.

The electricity connections of all these police posts were severed many years ago for default of payment, but the cops had connected their police posts with hooked wires.

However, the police have their own story to tell. “We cannot pay the bills unless the payment is passed and money is made available by the head office. We can’t pay these bills from our own pockets,” said policemen in charge of these posts.