Haidergarh News: ‘Bring Your Wife Alone, Then the Electricity Connection Will Be Restored’ – Engineer Pradeep Gautam’s Disgusting Demand”

Ravi Singh

Haidergarh News: A shocking case has come to light from Barabanki, where an executive engineer of the Electricity department has been accused of making obscene demands in exchange for correcting a farmer’s electricity bill. In the incident, which took place in a village under Haidergarh tehsil of the district, it is alleged that the engineer became infatuated with the farmer’s wife during an inspection. He allegedly pressured the farmer to send his wife to meet him alone, in return he corrected the wrongly inflated electricity bill and reconnected the power supply.

The complainant, a local farmer, claimed that Engineer Pradeep Gautam came to his house for a regular inspection on March 13, 2024. During the visit, the engineer allegedly praised the beauty of the farmer’s wife. The next day, the electricity reading was changed, leading to a higher bill and later the power connection was disconnected. After this, the farmer went to the engineer’s office on March 16 and demanded to resolve the issue, but was allegedly told that his bill could be corrected only if he sent his wife alone to meet the engineer.

Despite repeated requests from the farmer, the engineer remained adamant on his demand. Fearing social stigma, the farmer did not complain about the incident at first. However, on January 31, 2025, the engineer allegedly came to the farmer’s house again and demanded an additional amount of Rs 40,000 and to bring his wife along for the electricity connection. The farmer was frightened by this behavior of the engineer, so he complained to higher officials and registered the matter on the Chief Minister’s portal, where he complained to the Managing Director of Madhyanchal Vidyut Vibhag. In response to the allegations, Executive Engineer Pradeep Gautam denied the allegations, calling them baseless and fabricated.

He claimed that the electricity department is continuously running a campaign against defaulters and the concerned bill has been sent to the Sub-Divisional Officer (SDO) for correction. Gautam insisted that all the allegations levelled against him were part of a conspiracy and completely false. Meanwhile, the chief engineer has initiated an internal inquiry and a complaint has been lodged with the police. Regional chief engineer Rajbala said the complaint came to light after a routine inspection drive.

She confirmed that the allegations, especially those related to the engineer’s unreasonable demands, would be probed. She also informed that several complaints have been received about discrepancies in consumers’ bills, which is why efforts are being made to eliminate manual billing and implement a more transparent online billing system with video meter reading.