5 days on, 16 flooded villages without power

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, August 24

As many as 16 flooded villages of Lohian are going without electricity for the past five days. Though the objective of disconnecting power is to make sure that no incident of electrocution of villagers or livestock occurs in the area, it has left the villagers with a huge sense of insecurity after sunset.

Sitting on rooftops in the day, residents can be seen using hand fans to get relief from the heat while in the evening, they have to use candles or emergency lights. Even these emergency lights cannot be recharged in the absence of power. Residents said batteries of their mobile phones had got empty and they are cut off from the world, already being isolated in their homes due to floods.

The 16 villages where supply remains cut are Janian, Mehrajwal, Janian Chahal, Kotha, Mundi Kallu, Mundi, Chohalian, Mundi Shehrian, Gata Mundi Kasu, Chak Wadala, Mandala, Channa, Nasirpur, Sardarwala, Theh Kushalgarh, Dhaka Basti and Pind Nallu Dera under Shahkot and Lohian in Jalandhar.

According to PSPCL sources, the distribution division in Nakodar city has also been disconnected. As a result, power supply of approximately 1,100 consumers of these villages has been affected.

Nine villages, including Nawan Pind Khalewal, Gati Raipur, Gati Peer Baksh, Kamalpur, Jakopur Kalan, Kakar Kalan, Fatehpur, Kang Khurd and Jalalpur villages, was also affected earlier and impacted 1,950 consumers. The supply to all these nine villages has been restored on August 23.

Supply to three villages, Mand Inderpur, Jamaliwal and Mannu Machi, under Sultanpur Lodhi area, too, was affected due to floods.

As Baldev Singh Sran, CMD of PSPCL, visited the area on Friday, he said timely instructions to PSPCL distribution officials to switch off power supply to fields/resident areas of villages/ towns and cities during heavy rains and floods had helped preventing any incident of electrocution. He said he would visit the flood-affected areas in Ropar, Kapurthala and Jalandhar districts and submit a detailed report to the Chief Minister of the losses.

The CMD was accompanying minister Tript Rajinder Singh Bajwa, Director Distribution NK Sharma, Chief Engineer Operation North Sanjeev Kumar and Engineer-in-Chief Enforcement Gopal Sharma during their visit to flood-affected areas.

Sran said all loses to electrical infrastructure such as electricity meters, wires, poles and transformers, would be taken care of by the PSPCL. 

The CMD said another 20 to 25 farmhouses of Kutbepur, Ramgarhdaleli, Andrisa, Mand Abdrisa, Fatewal and Bakaarke villages were submerged in water and were without electric supply. 

He said as many as 275 connections in these areas were under preventive shutdown due to floods. The supply would be restored immediately once water level decreases, he added. 

Unified collection, dispatch centre 

• The district administration has established an ‘unified control and collection and dispatch centre’ in Lohian to collect and dispatch relief material for the marooned Lohian block. The centre has been set up at a marriage palace in Lohian, which is working 24x7, yesterday.
• Deputy Commissioner (DC) Varinder Kumar Sharma said: “With the heavy rush of generous people who have organised langar and been distributing relief material in an unorganised manner, there is a traffic problem in the town due to which the administration has been facing a lot of difficulties in transporting material for plugging operations.”

Villagers’ demand

• Even as the floods have drained out from the houses of Motipur Khalsa village, in Phillaur, the two-day flood fury has left the villagers devastated. 
• The ‘Pucca houses’, they had built have developed cracks. Joginder Kaur (73), said: “We again have to save enough so that we can live in a safe shelter.”