Cyclone Phailin came and left but not before leaving behind trail of woes, which also included mobile phone use hitches in absence of power supply. Cell phone users’ plight in cyclone-hit areas, particularly in Ganjam district, has paid lucrative dividend to generator operators, who are charging high price for re-charging the cells.
Post-cyclone, over 15 lakh mobile phone users are facing the problem of recharging their phones in the district.Generator owners in Brahmapur, Chhatrapur, Ganjam, Gopalpur, Hinjili and Aska are making most of the situation by running their generator Initially, the recharge rate was `10, but now it is Rs 30 an hour.
These generators are running on kerosene and are connecting more than 50 plug points to recharge the mobile phone batteries at a time. Now the street corners are brimming with nearly 4,000 makeshift stalls with specially-built boards of plug sockets and generators.