corridors of power especially within the ias cadre was that he had been removed after lobbying by some highprofile transformer companies which were blacklisted by awasthi wellplaced uppcl sources confirmed to toi that awasthi was about to recommend action against some of the engineers who had once inspected the transformers which could not bear the load of power and went dysfunctional in the peak of summers he had already suspended chief engineer of aligarh kk singhal and superintending engineer narendra agarwal this is very much similar to the action taken by awasthi on november 14 2008 when he in the capacity of pcl managing director blacklisted a dozen companies however on january 1 2009 awasthi was transferred the confidential note issued by the then director distribution arun toi has a copy of it spoke of some 12 such companies which provided faulty transformers the report shows that the transformers supplied by some of the companies had an alarming fault rate of nearly 10 per year while the pcl generally followed the practice of blacklisting companies with 5 and more fault rate in the previous regime the blacklisted companies were let off the hook and then came back into the business with the uppcl that the quality of transformers was comprised came to the fore after thousands of transformers got damaged in the peak of summers this year in lucknow alone over 500 transformers got damaged within a period of three months a senior uperc official said that circumstances clearly showed that the matter was being hushed up when there is a quality control committee and it has already found the quality of transformers to be compromised then where is the need for another committee said a senior official on the condition of anonymity the issue has already snowballed into a raging controversy with the up rajya vidyut upbhogta parishad demanding intervention of the up chief minister first they officials punished the companies during the power crisis and now they are trying to hush up the matter such actions do not gel with the government which claims itself to being anticorruption said parishad president ak verma