A delegation of the Anna Brigade led by Srikant Padhi met the RDC (Southern) here on Saturday and submitted a memorandum addressed to the Chief Minister on the problems of electricity consumers in the city.
Odisha is primarily an agricultural State and a larger chunk of its population is below the poverty line. To bring suitable reforms for the benefit of the consumers, the State Government had privatised the supply of energy. On the contrary, the problems of the consumers in Ganjam district have increased manifold and they have become victims of exploitation by the Southco, the memorandum said.
The 10-point memorandum demanded waiver of energy bills at least for two months for every consumer because of the economic setback to the people of Ganjam due to the cyclone Phailin; rectification of all post-cyclone low-quality electrical repair works and a probe into such substandard works; fixing accountability for illumination of street lights during daytime while during dark hours there is frequent load-shedding; uninterrupted power supply to consumers; to stop collection of meter rents; 30-40% reduction on monthly energy bills; free energy for farmers; collection of fine from the consumers who fail to deposit their energy dues in time; collection of bills as per the MD of the meters; and installation of adequate transformers as per strength of the consumers.
If the demands are not met at the earliest, well-known social worker and Anna Hazare follower Srikant Padhi would go on fast before the RDC office and intensify the agitation, the memorandum warned.
Among others, Padma Charan Das of IMC, Dr Pramod Chandra Pattnaik, Jagannath Tripathy, Haribandhu Nayak, S Behera, advocate Naresh Prasad Patra, SK Gantayat, Subash Chandra Sahu, Dinabandhu Maharana and Sakuntala Roula joined the delegation. Earlier, BJP leader Rama Chandra Panda had also demanded reduction of 30 per cent in the monthly energy bills of the city’s consumers and free electricity to farmers of the Phailin-affected Ganjam farmers.