7Jharkhand districts reel under darkness as Damodar Valley Corporation continues to cut power supply

Seven districts in Jharkhand are facing acute power cut for the past week despite the Jharkhand Urja Vikash Nigam Limited (JUVNL) paying Rs 350 crores to the Damodar Valley Corporation (DVC) to clear its outstanding bills.

Dhanbad, Giridih, Bokaro, Koderma, Ramgarh , Chatra and Hazaribag have been experiencing 10 to 12 hours load shedding every day since September 15. The entire region plunges into darkness due to power cut especially at night.

DVC spokesperson M Vijay Kumar justified the power cuts and said that JUVNL had paid only 10% of total dues and the corporation is purchasing power from other companies to maintain supply to its regular consumers.

“Whatever power is left after meeting the requirement of regular consumers, DVC supplies that to Jharkhand. So load shedding to Jharkhand would continue till pending bills are cleared,” Kumar said.

DVC had on September 1 served notice to JUVNL threatening to stop power supply in the state from September 15 if pending bills of Rs 3,354 crores were not cleared before the deadline.

The load shedding has triggered panic among JUVNL employees. They have left sub stations fearing backlash from people when DVC cut power supply during India-Pakistan match on Wednesday evening. Irate consumers even gheraoed Dhaiya power sub-station on Wednesday when power was not restored till 10 pm.

Jharkhand Bijili Vitran Nigam Limited, Dhanbad area board general manager (GM) Naresh Prasad Sinha said, as per agreement, DVC has to give prior information about load shedding. But, DVC officials neither give prior information of load shedding nor the duration of power cut.

First Published: Sep 21, 2018 15:34 IST