GURGAON: Chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar on Thursday ordered FIRs to be filed against 57 officials of power discom DHBVN in the multi-crore pillar box scam that came to light last year. Seven of these officials, including former chief engineer(Gurgaon) Subhash Deswal, were suspended in August.

Additional chief secretary for power Rajan Gupta told TOI the chief minister issued the directions after a scrutiny of the vigilance report in the case. "The managing director has been issued orders to initiate proceeding to get FIRs filed against 57 officials from DHBVN's Faridabad circle. Seven of these officials are already under suspension," said Gupta.

Among the officials suspended last year were superintending engineer RS Yadav, executive engineers Vikas Mohan Dahiya, Jitender Dhull and Ramniwas Yadav and SDOs Mandeep Kundu and Anil Solanki. The suspensions followed an inquiry by Haryana Vidyut Prasaran Nigam's director (vigilance) MS Mann into suspected financial irregularities worth crores in the purchase of pillar boxes for the Faridabad circle. TOI was the first to report on the inquiry and the subsequent suspensions last August.

According to Mann's inquiry report, the discom had received complaints of alleged irregularities in the purchase of pillar boxes. According to norms, the discom was to release a payment of Rs 25 crore after purchase of materials. However, according to records, the payment for orders amounting to Rs 100 crore was released by issuing a limited tender, which is done only in emergencies.

During the course of the inquiry, it had also come to light that work orders worth Rs 244 crore (including work orders of the Faridabad circle) were issued illegally to four companies - Ishwar Metal Industry, Agarwal Traders, Saini Electricals and JR Transformers Limited for setting up pillar boxes for meters.

According to DHBVN's general manager (Gurgaon circle) the discom had implemented the scheme in June last year under which electricity meters had to be shifted to poles outsides building premises as cases of meter tampering were causing losses to the power company.

