Thaindian News

Agra, Dec 26 (IANS) Residents of Agra are a frustrated lot these days with the power supply in the city continuing to be erratic despite power distribution being handled by a private company.

When Torrent Power Limited took over the electricity distribution in the Taj city 20 months ago, residents thought they had seen the last of the erratic power supply.

But experience in the past few months has already disillusioned them and they now increasingly feel the transition to privatisation was effected to benefit ruling party functionaries.

“Not only is the power supply erratic but also inadequate. They are only punctual about sending bills and disconnecting. Overall the situation has only worsened,” says Mukesh, an industrialist of Foundry Nagar.

Torrent officials say their job is only distribution and not generation. “The supply is cut from above on orders from Lucknow. Also, there has been a rise in the number of faults due to severe winter,” says Torrent official Pankaj Saxena.

Consumers are, however, not convinced. They think the company is only interested in making profits and not providing better services. “Earlier too, we faced the same type of problems. What is the difference between now and then?” asks businessman Sudhir Agarwal.

Farmers in the rural areas have been agitated about the power supply. “This is the time for sowing of potato and other Rabi crops. The farmers need power to run the pumps for irrigation. But the supply is so erratic and hardly sufficient. Anger could affect voting patterns in the coming elections,” said Ravi Singh, a progressive farmer of Barauli Aheer block.

With the state going to the polls in 40 days’ time, the issue has already become politicised.

Samajwadi Party candidates have announced the contract with Torrent would be cancelled if their party came to power. The Congress party workers have been regularly staging ‘dharnas’ and protest marches. They have been torching effigies of Torrent officials and threatening direct action if the situation did not improve in a week.

Bhartiya Janata Party MP from Agra city Ram Shankar Katheria has held a people’s court in the office of the company. He was even booked for assaulting an official. Katheria has criticised the privatisation of power supply as he thinks it has only created problems for ordinary consumers.

However, the government insists the power situation is all right and has also justified the move to bring in Torrent to handle power supply.

State Energy Minister Ramvir Upadhyaya, whose wife Seema is the ruling Bahujan Samaj Party’s parliament member from Agra (rural), says: “Agra is getting fairly good supply, the best in UP. The objective which the government had in mind at the time of privatisation of supply in Agra and Kanpur, has been achieved”.

The Supreme Court in its historic judgment of 1996 on M.C. Mehta’s public interest litigation had ordered uninterrupted power supply in the Taj Trapezium Zone to contain air pollution from diesel generators. But 15 years later, the situation remains largely unchanged with many more generators belching smoke and noise in teh city.