Lucknow, Dec 19 (IANS): With many districts lagging in the recovery of power dues running into crores of rupees, the Uttar Pradesh government has cracked the whip and taken action against 16 engineers, officials said on Saturday.

The government has ordered transfer of a chief engineer, a superintendent engineer to irrelevant posts and adverse entries to four superintendent engineers and 10 executive engineers, officials said.

The penal action was ordered by Chief Secretary Alok Ranjan after he was told that recoveries were pending in a big way in Basti and other districts.

He also expressed displeasure over the slow pace of electrification in small habitats (Majras). The government had set a target of electrifying 1.4 lakh Majras by October 2016 while only 31,750 have been electrified so far.

The transmission wing of Uttar Pradesh Power Corporation Limited (UPPCL), however, was commended for energising three 400 Kv substations, five substations of 220 Kv and 21 substations of 132 Kv.

The government has also directed the irrigation department to transfer land to the energy department for construction of one 220 Kv substation at Kanpur, one 132 Kv substation at Lucknow and one 132 Kv substation at Bijnore.