Kalahandi plunges into darkness

Expressbuzz, June 22, 2009

BHAWANIPATNA: Nineteen hours of power cut daily is making life difficult for the people of Kalahandi, who are already reeling under unrelenting heatwave and sultry weather conditions.

The district has been facing 19-hour-long power cut for the last five days. In Bhawanipatna and elsewhere in the district, this has affected water supply, health services, official and commercial works.

Public resentment against apathy of the district administration spilled onto the streets with the members of Kalahandi Citizen Committee and Bar Association picketing in front of the collectorate yesterday demanding an early settlement of the problem.

Incidentally, against the district’s minimum requirement of 28 mega watts (MW) power supply, it just gets 18 MW. The low supply is being attributed to absence of proper infrastructure and lack of maintenance of grids.

The Kesinga grid has not been upgraded and despite repeated reminders, a proposed grid station at Bhawanipatna is yet to be set up.

Locals alleged that both Gridco and Wesco are responsible for the harassment meted to the public.

To add to their woes, Wesco authorities instead of repairing the defects and normalising power supply, recently made a public announcement that the problem will continue indefinitely and there will be one hour of power supply followed by two hours of power cuts every day.

It informed that the problem was due to maintenance work at Thirubali.

District Collector, R.S. Gopalan said VAL is negotiating to provide two MW of power soon to compensate the short supply by Gridco to the district and Gridco has also negotiated to set up the 133 KV grid station at Bhawanipatna and upgrade the Kesinga grid at the earliest.