Odisha Aghast Over Unscheduled Power Cuts

Bhubaneswar: Even as resentment is brewing among the people across Odisha over frequent and unscheduled power cuts, no clarification has so far been issued either by the Energy department or the Odisha Electricity Regulatory Commission (OERC).

Leave alone rural areas, even denizens of Jharpada, Bomikhal, Chandrasekharpur, Niladri Vihar, Baramunda and Mancheswar in Odisha capital are sweating it out because of frequent load-shedding.

Protesting against the callousness of the Energy department, irate locals and the citizen forum had recently given a bandh call in Komna block of Nuapada district and detained the senior officials of the department. The officials had later assured the people to restore power within four months.

Briefing mediapersons after a meeting of the House Committee on Energy on Friday, senior Congress leader and Opposition leader Narasingha Mishra had said when the state capital is facing frequent power cuts, the plight of the people in the rural areas can well be imagined. “The state government is pretty aware of the situation. But it is least bothered about the plight of the people,” he added.

BJD leader and former minister Bijay Mohapatra said the OERC while effecting a hike in power tariff, had assured an uninterrupted and quality supply of power to the people. The quality of power they are being provided, however, leaves much to be desired.

“The consumers were hopeful that there will be improvement in the power supply after the state government had relieved Reliance Power and taken the reins of the power distribution network. Sadly, the situation has worsened further,” he pointed out.

Expressing grave concern over the prevailing power scenario, leader of Odisha Power Employees Union, Ramesh Satpathy said old wires and transformers have not been replaced in about 50 percent areas of the state since 40-50 years. There have been instances of deaths due to snapping of the live wire. “The cost of repair, maintenance and replacement of the existing wires and transformers would require Rs 20,000 crore to improve the power situation in the state,” he observed.

Satpathy also said that the grim situation in the power sector in Odisha is due to non-maintenance of the equipment since last 20 years.

It is worthwhile to mention here that the state government had brought about a major reform in the power sector in 1995. Later, it took Rs 1160 crore loan from the World Bank for infrastructure development in the power sector, but failed to utilize it. This was revealed by the Sovan Kanungo Committee in its report in 2001. The committee had recommended Rs 3200 crore investment for development in the power sector. The recommendation, however, was pushed into cold storage.

Subsequently, the OERC, during a hearing had apprised the then chief secretary Ajit Kumar Mopahatra, of the grim power scenario in the state.

Later, the then Energy secretary Pradip Kumar Jena came up with a scheme ‘Capex’ (capital expenditure) proposal in 2010 in which it was decided to invest Rs 2400 crore for replacement of all power line and conductors in the rural areas and entrusted the power distribution companies (discoms) to take up the work. However, of the sanctioned amount, the discoms could utilize only Rs 900 crore.

Director, Grid Corporation of Odisha (Gridco), Commercial, Manas Das said since the hydropower generation in the state has come down, the state government has been procuring power from GMR and Vedanta Power to meet the shortfall.

However, he informed that the state will have a power deficit of 110 MW for one month as one power unit each of the National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) at Kaniha and the Talcher Thermal Power Station (TTPS) at Talcher would remain closed for repair.