An official release said here on Tuesday that GEB chairman Nalin Bhatt was apprised of this at a meeting held here recently. The detection following checking more than 2,75,000 connection in the entire State.

According to the release, more than 11,000 connections were found to be pilfering power, more than 5,000 had other serious irregularities and over 3,000 had been tempered with so as to show less consumption. Stern actions were initiated against all the guilty, the release said.

Lauding the efforts of the vigilance cell, Bhatt exhorted them to step up its activities. However, he said that power theft would not be possible without the collusion of a section of the board officials. The release said that Bhatt told the officials not to spare any employee if found erring in his duties specially the detection of power theft.

``Power is a national property and wealth and stealing it is a loss not only to the GEB but also to the nation,'' he said exhorting all the employees to work for the prosperity of country as a whole. The GEB member technical K K Vaghela, executive director P C Patel and several other senior officials including H A Shah, C P Mehta and A J Shah participated in the meeting. the release added.