The Hindu : Karnataka News : Siege laid to HESCOM office in protest against erratic supply

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, May 04, 2005

Karnataka

Karnataka - Others

Siege laid to HESCOM office in protest against erratic supply

Correspondent

Power shutdown has been resorted to only to ensure completion of improvement works, says official

KARWAR: Nearly 500 people, including members of the NSUI, merchants' association and autorickshaw owners' association, laid a siege to the office of the Hubli Electric Supply Company (HESCOM) Limited for nearly two hours in protest against erratic power supply in the town.

The NSUI President, Raghu Naik, who gave the protest call, told the executive engineer of HESCOM, M.S. Patil, that power failure and unscheduled power shutdown had become a daily affair in the town. It only reflected the negligence and the inefficiency of the company.

K.R. Desai, advocate, Leo Lewis, Samajwadi Party leader, Jitendra Thanna, and Ajay Sawkar, members of the merchants' association, said HESCOM which used to enforce power cut on Wednesdays for maintenance, had started doing it every day now.

He said Uttara Kannada being a major centre of power generation in the State is now facing power shutdowns regularly. The district should be provided with uninterrupted power supply as several families had sacrificed their land and property for power projects.

Mr. Patil clarified that HESCOM had been working for the past four months to improve power supply in the district. It had replaced 132.46 km of high-tension power line and 191.7 km of low-tension line.

He said as many as 103 new converters had been installed. Besides, 33/11 kV and 2x500 kVA converters were installed in the grid in the town. As many as 11 kV transmission lines had been divided into six lines and 52 electric poles, which were uprooted in cyclonic winds last week, are being replaced.

He said all these improvements were being made keeping in mind the future power requirement of the town. These had to be carried out by resorting to power shutdown.

He said cable and pothead in the grid at Shejawada were burnt two days ago causing power failure.

He promised that power supply will be regularised and efforts will be made to prevent power failure.

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