VENTING THEIR IRE: Residents of Madikeri staging a protest at the CHESCOM office on Wednesday.

Madikeri: Residents of Madikeri, led by the Kodagu District Chamber of Commerce and Industry, on Wednesday, laid siege to the Chamundeshwari Electricity Supply Company (CHESCOM) office, protesting against what they termed unscheduled power cuts and load shedding in the district, Madikeri city in particular, threatening not to pay electricity bills.

They took out a march from the market to the CESCOM office. The residents set a one-week deadline to set right the erratic power supply and low voltage problems.

Kodagu utilised the least amount of power in the entire State. Over 95 per cent of the citizens paid the bills promptly, yet they were deprived of power, G. Chidvilas, general secretary of the district body alleged, addressing the gathering of protesters at the CESCOM office.

The authorities had stated that power supply snapped due to theft of copper wires near Mysore, but only Kodagu suffered without power for days, not Mysore or other areas, he said.

Vishwanath from the Rotary Misty Hills, who took the CHESCOM officials to task said power supply scenario in the rural areas of the district was worse. If protests were not launched, the situation would further worsen, he said. K.T. Baby Mathew of the Kodagu District Christian Welfare Association said power failure in the district had hit the students, who were preparing for annual examinations and upset household chores. K.M. Ganesh, president of the Madikeri City Chamber of Commerce and Industry; Jayakumar, treasurer of the district body; representatives of the autorickshaw owners and drivers association and Stree Shakti groups addressed the gathering. They urged the CESCOM to set right power supply in a week. The executive engineer of the CHESCOM, Kodagu, K. Srinath, who received a memorandum from the protesters, stated that power cut was necessary between 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. owing to shortage. The Hottagally station in Mysore switched off power to tide over crisis.

`Technical problems'

On an average, Kodagu had utilised 2.5 lakh units of power everyday last year. In spite of the problems, the district utilised more than 2.5 lakh units everyday this year, he said. The low voltage problem for the last 10 days was owing to the technical problems at the 66 kV sub-station, he said.

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