- Wed, 8 Sep, 2010, 11:57 am -

|| P. Vijay Raghavan ||
Ranchi/Daltonganj: The blistering heat added to the misery of long drawn power cuts has compelled the people of Daltonganj to lodge their protest in a unique manner.

Daltonganj has been witnessing a heat wave for the past three months and to add to their woes the strong gale about a month and half ago uprooted the main tower at Sonenagar, thus plunging the city into darkness. Though temporarily electricity was partially restored, it was like a drop in the ocean as the entire city was hardly getting couple of hours of power.
 

The restoration work on the tower was going at snail’s pace and the Shibu government practically non-functional then; there was no control over the maintenance staff. The innumerable complaints and pleas of the locals fell only on deaf ears and none of the officials prepared to give a definite answer.

The residents decided to lodge their protest in a unique manner. Hundreds of residents made a bee-line to the Koel river banks every night for the past few days (nights) with their beddings to catch up with their sleep under the sky and cool comfort of the river banks. The Koel River at present is totally dry.

The idea behind the protest was to catch the media’s attention and proved successful as the entire local and national channels rushed to the spot to cover the unique protest.

The agitated people were waiting for just this opportunity to express and voice their anger against the administration and JSEB. This correspondent spoke to many residents and every one of them echoed the misery of the past 45 days being forced on them.

Vishwanath Ram Bhura, president of the minorities’ cell of RJD is also amongst the hundreds spending their nights on the river banks and minces no words as he cursed the inefficient governance of the JMM/BJP alliance. He squarely blamed them for the present crisis and alleged that these selfish leaders have forced the people to sleep outside under the open skies.

Ramesh Giri, an established businessman of the area more or less shares the sentiments of Vishwanath but feels that situation would improve under the President’s rule. He pleaded with the media to highlight the apathy of the JSEB towards its consumers.

Local MLA K N Tripathi could not be contacted for his comments.

JSEB officials in Ranchi totally refuted the allegations of apathy. M P Yadav, General Secretary of JSEB Association and the Chief coordinator, said that the two towers that were damaged in the strong gale had to be dismantled and reconstructed and erected. Each tower takes around 4 days and the work on the towers commenced the very next day i.e. the 2nd of this month itself and as of today is fully operational. He added that the other towers in the Bihar area of the Sone nagar were yet to be repaired forcing power cuts. Sone is providing 25MW and 15 MW is being consumed for emergency services and Railways and 10-12MW for the City. Load shedding is done partially with 2-3 hr intermissions and services would regain normalcy within the next 7-10days.