Mumbai: Local police stations will now register and probe power theft cases replacing six special police stations that were set up by the state government. The state has decided to shut these police stations that were set up by state-run Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company Limited (MSEDCL) to probe electricity theft cases across the state. The local police station will also take over the ongoing litigations.

The state government issued an order on Thursday which stated that the reason behind the closing of the special police stations is logistical shortcomings. These police stations were set up in Kalyan, Pune, Nashik, Latur, Jalna, Nagpur starting from 2006. The police stations were set up in those circles, which were considered to be most notorious for power thefts.

These police stations were probing more than 1.6 lakh power theft cases to the tune of `1.9 lakh that were registered with them after they were set up. Each of these police stations had exhaustive jurisdictions that made it difficult for the officers to investigate the case thoroughly. This affected the investigation rather than aiding it, officials said.

The teams had however detected thefts of 59.43 million units of electricity. Till December 2017, these police stations had solved 68,099 cases, while 87,420 power theft cases were pending with them.

“Basics like visiting site offence, making panchnamas to begin a probe was all affected, and a call had to be taken soon. It was finally decided that the local police stations will look into these complaints henceforth,” said a senior police officer.