The authorities finally seem to have come up with a seemingly clever scheme to curb power theft in the city – the Voluntary Disclosure Scheme. Power Distribution Company BSES was soon planning to launch a Voluntary Disclosure Scheme (VDS) in some the areas of East and Central Delhi under which, consumers stealing power through tampering of meters would be encouraged to inform the department about the same and get away with the payment of just a nominal penalty.

The scheme would be implemented only for the registered customers of BSES who would have been stealing power by way of meter tampering only and would not cover people who had been indulging in direct theft of power by hooking from the cables.

BSES had also completed its Distribution Transformer Metering work which would now make it possible for the distribution company to precisely pinpoint power theft in any given locality. Armed with this data, BSES had already increased the intensity and frequency of its raids. So it made even more sense for people to opt for this scheme.

Under VDS, BSES would offer a one-time opportunity to its customers involved in theft of power to voluntarily confess to the same and in lieu of this the discom would adopt a lenient and a sympathetic approach towards them. If a person confessed to the crime, criminal proceedings would not be initiated against him and instead he will be let off with just a nominal penalty which, too, would be charged at reduced rates. After the declaration of theft, the meter would also be regularized.

As against this, if a person was caught stealing power he would have to cough up a penalty of up to 30 times his electricity bill, apart from criminal proceedings being initiated against him.

Given the nature of the scheme, the BSES is expecting it to go a long way in cleaning up the current mess in the power distribution system. To build up support for this campaign, which had been introduced on the lines of the VDS introduced by the Income Tax Department few years ago, BSES would soon be sending letters to Residents' Welfare Associations and municipal councillors, intimating them about the scheme.

A pilot scheme would first be launched in parts of East Delhi and also in areas of Central Celhi like Karol Bagh, Paharganj, Darya Ganj and Chandni Chowk which would later be extended to all the areas covered by the company.

The move assumed significance since, after a series of coercive measures, this was the first time a persuasive measure had been adopted to bring down the incidence of power theft. And this might just work as was discovered by the Income Tax department a few years back.