residents raised concerns over how despite knowing about the strike by the power department employees days in advance, the administration was caught unprepared. (Representational) A day after Chandigarh plunged into darkness, residents raised concerns over how despite knowing about the strike by the power department employees days in advance, the administration was caught unprepared.
They feel that the administration should also take responsibility of the blackout, which threw normal life out of gear and even affected emergency services.
When asked what steps he took to avert the situation, UT advisor Dharam Pal, said, “We were holding regular talks with the power union workers and they were holding peaceful protests. We didn’t expect that something this major will happen.” He added that the Army was called in to help and now supply was restored to most of the areas.
When questioned why the helplines also didn’t function, he said that the lines for which people were provided numbers at the telephone exchange were also disrupted. “It was due to the disruption caused at the telephone exchange that people couldn’t reach out. When we got to know of the problem, we immediately sent teams to restore the lines back,” he said, adding that no one was aware that such a situation will arise. “There have been protests previously too but never were the emergency services affected,” he said.
He added that enough precaution was taken to avert the situation and the administration had even conveyed to Punjab and Haryana to send their staff to fill in for the protesting workers. “However, even those workers extended their support to the protesting employees,” he said.
The power department workers had been saying for the past one month that they will be going on a three-day strike. Despite that power that supply was disrupted earlier this month as well, the administration could have taken proper steps to ensure that the residents didn’t face any inconvenience.
While Chief Engineer CB Ojha, who is incharge of the engineering wing and has the power department under him, was supposed to keep a close watch of the situation, he was not available for a comment on Wednesday even after repeated calls.
‘Missing’ MP Kirron Kher
While it was for the first time that a planned city like Chandigarh faced such a blackout with almost all essential activities being affected, there was not a word from Chandigarh MP Kirron Kher.
Congress workers on Wednesday protested outside her residence and said that the outage has impacted normal life of the residents, who are left without electricity and water.
Chandigarh Youth Congress President Manoj Lubana protested against Kirron Kher with missing posters infront of her house.
He said, “Unprecedented blackout in the history of Chandigarh, no electricity in most parts of the city since more than 24 hours. The administration, under BJP Govt, wants to privatise the profit running power department. After destroying the city beautiful, MP Kirron Kher is missing.”
Cong backs protesting power dept workers
Extending their support to the workers, Congress Wednesday also condemned the privatisation of the department. They said, “The move to transfer a profit-making electricity department having its assets worth thousands of crores to a corporate just for Rs 871 crore while ignoring the interests of the people is aimed at ensuring a windfall profit to the cronies of the BJP.”
Congress spokesperson Rajesh Sharma said the department has been consistently earning good profits. At present Rs 2.5 is charged for the first 150 units for domestic consumers and this concession will be withdrawn once a private player takes over.
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