Chandigarh, July 21 (IANS): After gaining notoriety for people not paying power bills and indulging in power theft, Haryana recently ran a campaign that led to the detection of over 30,000 power theft cases, an official said here on Friday.

"As a result of an intensive campaign launched by the power utilities in Haryana to keep a check on theft of power, 30,000 cases of power theft have been detected during the last three months in which a penalty of Rs 97 crore has been imposed," a spokesman of the power utilities said here.

He said that the utilities have achieved a "huge success by reducing the line losses by five per cent during last one year".

"As a result of this, the consumers paying bills regularly are getting the benefit in terms of concession in electricity bills," he added.

The spokesman said the campaign against power theft had proved successful "due to the active support of people, employees and officers of the utilities".

He said that officers of power utilities and vigilance department were conducing regular raids throughout Haryana and citizens also cooperated in eliminating the practice by giving information about cases of power theft.