BPL families in Odisha village go without electricity

Even as the blistering heat scorches Odisha, the lives of the common people have been made all the more difficult by an acute shortage of power across the state. But the story of Kusumasila village under Kalyansinghpur block in Raygada district is particularly bad.

The 65 families in this village below the poverty line are all under the Rajiv Gandhi Grameen Bidyutikaran Yojana. However, of these, 45 remain without electricity because of a technical snag in meter box installed near the transformer since the past seven months.

The transformer in the remote village had not been maintained for quite some time which led to their failure. Tired of waiting for the authorities to take action, the locals themselves employed a local linesman to fix the issue. This process is both costly and unreliable.

These glitches are not the first. "We have had to fix the transformer twice in the past. On both occasions, the electrician asked for Rs 500. As the most of the families are poor porters, so it is too hard for us to always satisfy the lineman," said another village.

The government has, as usual made vague comments about changing things. When asked, the junior engineer of Shikarpuri division, Jitendra Kumar Ray said, “We will replace the equipment which have developed snags very soon.”

Till then, the poor of Kusumasila remain without electricity, waiting for action from the government, which more often than not fails to come.