John Wilbert & Rabindranath
Port Blair, Sept 26: Hundreds of residents of ward number 22 and 23 and Calicut, Beodnabad, Bimlitan,Tylerabad and adjoining areas organized a massive protest in front of the Electricity Site Office at Birdline in the morning at 08:30AM today against the indiscriminate power cuts and irregular services.
As per report, the residents of these regions gathered at the site Office and shouted slogans against the Electricity Department and then they blocked the road at 10:30AM for nearly 30 minutes.
Later the Electricity Department’s Superintendent Engineer and other Officers of the areas reached the spot but the indignant residents continued the protest.
However, the SE intervened and tried to convince and soothe the agitated villagers and he also assured them that he would resolve their problems within a month.
According to the report, only after written assurances from the Superintendent Engineer to solve all these problems, the protestors retreated.
The written assurances which the agitators wanted comprised- that a dept. vehicle is deployed at the site office for round the clock service from 27 Sept., a joint survey with PRI ought to be carried out in a day or two day to identify the damaged poles and replace them within 10 to 15 days, a Complaint Cell is made functional at Burmanalla Panchayat Bhavan in a couple of months to attend the complaints in the area, Loose cables posing threat to human lives should be tightened in all the areas, LT line is extended to Dhobi Ghat to facilitate electricity, the work of replacement 16 numbers of poles should be completed in a time bound manner, LT line extension to Rose valley road should be completed in a month, a New LT line at Dream Colony will have to be taken up on priority, Low voltage problem at Japan Nallah, Mahaveer Nagar, Vivekananda colony, and Kamraj Nagar will have to be attended and resolved, replacement of poles at Hatti Nallah road and Mahaveer Nagar should be done without further delay, replacement of JE and AE should be done after getting approval from the competent authority.
Amid this, Smt. D Radhika, Councillor of Ward 23 talked to Andaman Sheekha and said that it has been long time since the villagers have been facing the problems of erratic power supply, delay in attending a complaint due to the shortage of staff at site office, the problem of low voltage problem owing to the increase in electricity connection without upgrading/enhancing the power of the transformers, and as result, the electronic and electrical appliances are getting damaged in many houses in the area.
However, the Superintendent Engineer Karuna Joydhar gave a written assurance at the end and then only the protesters dispersed at around 11:00 AM, the report further said.
