Erratic power supply makes life miserable for Ara residents

Kumar Rajiv Nayan

Patna: Erratic power supply has made life miserable for the people of Bhojpur district for the last three days. Power consumers got practically no power for the last 50 hours. Due to non-availability of power for about 50 hours, people cried for drinking water but the officials of the South Bihar Power Distribution Company Limited (SBPDCL) performed their duty in their own way.

The SBPDCL had announced shut down for only four hours i.e. from 9am to1pm on Tuesday for maintenance of power grid but power supply in the Bhojpur district headquarters, Ara, remained  disturbed since 7.30pm on Monday and the power could not be supplied till late night though the officials frequently assured to supply power within half an hour whenever queried about it after 1pm on Tuesday. When power was supplied at about midnight on Tuesday, it was useless for the people as voltage was over 300 and no one dared even switch on their fans. The same condition prevailed on Wednesday.

In the meantime, rain and storm added to the misery of the people giving another excuse to the officials. About a dozen trees fell on electric wire interrupting power supply at Ara on Wednesday. After the locals resorted to agitation and blocked roads at different places, the officials of the SBPDCL restored power supply around midnight on Wednesday with high speed fluctuation. On Thursday too, the situation was no better. Till the filing of this report, power was supplied for about four hours on Thursday.

Executive Engineer(EE),  SBPDCL, Raj Kumar said that the company had taken shut down for four hours only on Tuesday for maintenance of grid but it was helpless due rain and storm. He said the company was crippled as trees fell on electric wire. On Thursday, the EE  said some local fault was being repaired hence power could not be supplied even as the grid has sufficient power.

The locals, however,  blamed officials of the SBPDCL for all these anomalies and said that fall of trees interrupting power supply was a lame excuse. They said with the passage of time, heights of roads had been raised but the power company did not raise the height of electric poles and power was still being  supplied through age old rusted wire. They  said that branches of trees were leaning over electric wire at several places but the power company has not bothered to trim them. And whenever any tree falls on wire, power supply is cut and then the tree is removed and power supply restored.