Sniffing Out The Freeloaders Who Stress the Grid

NEW DELHI

In stifling heat shortly after noon, a compact, neatly groomed man in a plaid shirt and slacks plunges down an alley lined with mango sellers and women cooking bread over wood fires. He stops in front of a crumbling tenement. Something isn't right.

Spliced inexpertly -- and illegally -- to an overhead power line, an insulated wire droops to a second-floor balcony of the building, which emits an odor of melting plastic. The man and several police officers charge up the stairs and quickly locate the smell's source -- a tiny one-room factory. Inside are machines for molding plastic containers and a quavering teenage worker in his underwear.

In the perennial war against power theft in the Indian capital, S.K. Das has just scored another small victory.

An engineer with a no-nonsense demeanor and a cellphone affixed semi-permanently to one ear, Das, 41, is an enforcement manager for North Delhi Power Ltd., one of two private companies that distribute electricity in this city of 14 million people.

His task is urgent. About 36 percent of the power consumed in the capital is stolen, according to the Delhi power ministry. The culprits include slum dwellers, small illegal factories, middle-class homeowners, store owners, affluent businessmen and -- recently -- a Hindu temple.

"This is a habit for the past 20 or 30 years," says Das, who leads teams of technicians and police on frequent raids, often after tips from informants. "You have to change the mind-set of the people."

New Delhi's creaking power grid can ill afford such losses, especially during the suffocating, pre-monsoon heat of early summer, when demand from fans and air conditioners can overload the system, resulting in entire districts being plunged into darkness for hours.

To cut down on losses, the distribution companies are slowly upgrading the city's transmission network, installing new meters equipped with computer chips and modems, for example, so that tampering can be detected from remote locations. But technology is only part of the solution to purloined power. The other part consists of old-fashioned gumshoeing, of the sort that Das practiced during a routine sweep of two poor neighborhoods one recent afternoon.

After sniffing out the plastic factory, Das steps aside while two police officers interrogate the 17-year-old worker, demanding to know the name of the factory owner. "The inspector will beat you up if you don't tell," one of the officers warns the terrified teenager, who places his hand over his heaving chest.

"What am I supposed to do?" the teenager asks. "I just work here. Am I supposed to stop eating?" But a moment later, he coughs up the owner's name and the officers let him go. Several technicians accompanying Das stay behind to remove the machines, which the company will hold as collateral until the owner pays a fine.

Das plunges deeper into the neighborhood, head swiveling from side to side. Everywhere he looks, it seems, residents have helped themselves to free power by tossing metal hooks over bare transmission lines, creating spaghetti-like tangles.