Bashettihalli is a small village on the way to Doddaballapur. For quite some time now, the village has been successful in managing its waste to generate energy. Experts at the Karnataka Renewable Energy Development Limited (KREDL) estimate that close to 35 MW can be generated with around 5,000 tonnes of garbage generated in Bangalore every day.
At an interaction between and urban power consumers and power sector officials, Selvaraj, Technical Officer of KREDL, said systems could be installed for generating biogas and power from garbage. The interaction was organized by CIVIC to educate electricity consumers about their rights.
BESCOM general manager Jayanthi N also gave a presentation on how the energy utility dealt with customer complaints. “We have complaint categories from A to N based on directions issued by the KERC. However, while there are around 3,000 complaints from urban areas, there are very few from rural areas. Please call the helpline and lodge your complaint when you have issues with supply of power,” she urged.
She said transformer failures in the city were supposed to be rectified within one day while for rural areas, the time given was 72 hours. A consumer handbook dealing with issues like tariff, power supply and other topics would also be launched.