Members of the Anna Brigade led by its State coordinator advocate Srikant Padhi sat on a dharna in front of the Gandhi Statue at Gandhinagar Square here on Tuesday demanding stern action against the Southco, the electricity distribution company for south Odisha, for its “anti-consumer” policy.
The activists said the Southco was established primarily to develop infrastructure in the energy sector and supply uninterrupted and quality power to the consumers, but the company has clearly deviated from its core objectives and is becoming more and more commercialised at the public cost.
Unscheduled and frequent power cuts and a sky-high increase in monthly energy bills have shattered the hopes of millions of consumers in south Odisha, Padhi pointed out.
Making the Chief Minister responsible for such exploitative attitude of the company, Padhi questioned why the Chief Minister is not ordering an audit of the accounts of such energy supply companies as per the decisions of the High CourtIJ The Southco played with the careers of thousands of students of Ganjam district due to unscheduled power cuts during the post-Phailin period, particularly when the examinations were on, he alleged.
Among others, youth leaders Brundaban Sahu, Jagannath Bisoyi, Manoj Kumar Panigrahi, Arakhita Mohanty, Jagannath Sahu, N Bhimaraju Reddy, Sitaram Patra, Raghunath Gouda, Suvendu Kumar Das and Gourisankar Mohanty joined the dharna.