In Baijnath, protest over power outages

Our Correspondent

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Palampur, January 8

Residents of Panjala in Baijnath have held a protest here over the frequent power cuts these days. Commercial as well as domestic consumers say that they are fed up with unannounced power cuts but despite repeated complaints, officials of the HPSEBL are unconcerned.

Manoj Kumar Kapoor, owner of a flour mill, says the situation in Panjala has worsened in the past few months because of unannounced power cuts every third day, despite the fact that Himachal is a power surplus state.

He is suffering losses everyday but there is none in the HPSEBL to listen to his complaints. He says his monthly power bill is Rs 2 lakh to Rs 3 lakh. Besides, the HPSEBL is also taking minimum energy charges every month. He had also paid Rs 15 lakh to the HPSEBL for the installation of power conductors and transformers in his mill.

Rajesh Sharma, a sweets manufacturer, says because of frequent power outages, he had suffered losses in the past one year. He is unable to repay bank loans. He has made a number of complaints to the authorities concerned, but in vain.

A senior HPSEBL officer says the main cause of power failure is tripping of 33KV lines because of bad weather. The supply is also interrupted because of periodical testing of power supply lines by the engineering staff.

Consumers harassed

Commercial as well as domestic consumers say they are fed up with unannounced power cuts but despite repeated complaints, officials of the HPSEBL are unconcerned.