Drones are now being used by the Lucknow Electricity Supply Administration (LESA) to check power theft through air surveillance.
This is the first time that drones are being used to identify illegal power connections. According to Sanjay Jain, chief engineer, of LESA Cis-Gomti, more than 200 power thieves with photo evidence have been caught through the use of drones in the past month.
The official added, “In some areas of the city where our staff faced some resistance due to narrow lanes, we decided to use drones to catch power thieves. During the last month, we have caught more than 200 people at six places. These residents used to fix a ‘Katia’ to the power line at night and take it off before 4 a.m. Through drones, we secured the footage of people fixing the Katia connections and taking it off in the morning hours. When we raided these houses to cut off their connections, we had hard evidence.”
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He further said, “Presently, we have hired a few drones to catch power thieves but if this project is successful, then, we will purchase a few more drones not only for catching thieves but also for patrolling. We can also use it to locate faults at various places. The use of technology will only increase the efficiency of LESA.”
The control rooms of the sub-stations, after constant monitoring, found that the power load used to increase after 11 p.m. in some areas. There are 150 sub-stations in the state capital. These substations supply power through 2000 feeders. Out of these, 200 feeders record more cases of power theft, said chief engineer Sanjay Jain.
Due to constant checking drives during the daytime, people started using the Katia during night hours — primarily between 11 p.m. to 4 a.m. Due to this, the load on sub-stations used to increase rapidly.
For example, the load on the sub-station of the New Campus on Sitapur Road used to hover around 107 amperes during the daytime but would jump to 140 amperes during the night.
Similarly, in the Azad Nagar substation under the Amberganj area, the load used to remain at 90 amperes during the day but would jump to 140 amperes during the night.
In the Gaughat substation, the load used to remain around 52 amperes during the day but during the night, it would go up to 100 amperes, clearly indicating power theft.
The LESA team was surprised when it caught power theft in every house of Muftiganj’s Jehra Colony in May.
Similar was the case in Masalchi Tola. About 1,800 consumers are supplied from the Kadam Rasool feeder of the Ahibaranpur sub-station of the Daliganj section. LESA does not get the revenue of about 63 percent of the total electricity supplied.
The electricity supplied here is stolen on a large scale. At the same time, there are many people who do not pay the bills at all. In the last three months, 250 cases of power theft have been registered in this area alone.
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