BARIPADA: Unscheduled power cuts at frequent intervals has left the consumers sweating across Mayurbhanj district. While interruption in power supply has become a regular affair for residents, the difficulties have compounded with most people staying indoors at home due to the pandemic situation.
In April, Tata Power (TP Northern Odisha Distribution Limited (TPNODL) had taken over the management and operations of NESCO--North Eastern Electricity Supply Company of Odisha. While this had given hope to locals to avail quality power supply, the situation, on the contrary, has worsened in last three months.
Manoj Kumar Sahu, a resident of Baripada town, said,”We pay bills for electricity but most of the time are without it. The department is not rendering proper services.” Another consumer Dillip Kumar Mohanty said authorities do not care at all and there are outages even when there is no rain or storm. Manoj Sethy, a resident of the town, said the snags are affecting drinking water supply as they are unable to operate motor/pumps thus being deprived of water on many occasions .
For citizens, more than power failure, lack of prompt response to complaints by authorities concerned, is adding to their hassles. Irked, residents of Sankerka panchayat within Khunta police limits, on Saturday, reportedly detained a junior engineer of TPNODL for several hours at his office. Their locality gets only two hours of power supply daily.
Contacted, Superintending Engineer of TPNODL Sudip Mishra said the district has more than 5.5 lakh consumers. Power supply has been disrupted due to change of electricity poles and repair of structures after they were partially affected by cyclone Yaas and ‘Kalbaisakhi’. The problem will be addressed within a couple of months, he said.