Bhograi: Resentment brewing among local people over frequent power outage in Bhograi area of Balasore took a turn for worse Wednesday night. Hundreds of angry residents stormed the office of Bhograi-Palasia electric sub-station, vandalising assets and damaging official documents.
Acting on a complaint in this regard, police booked six local people involved in the vandalism.
According to reports, normal life was hit by sultry condition Wednesday. However, frequent power cuts made the matters worse in the evening for several hours. Moreover, there was power cut from 9 pm for several hours. Long hours of load-shedding made the people angry while about 500 people from Bhograi and Palasia trooped to the electric sub-station.
Later, the crowd grew larger and angry people threw off official documents.
Thousands of agitated locals broke chairs, tables, electric meters and lights in the pitched darkness. Seeing the rampaging mob, staff of the office – Harendra Ranjit and Basudev Mohanty—ran away. The agitating people raised slogans against the staff.
The electric staff cooked fish curry. The angry people ate the curry. They also burnt documents of the office at Bhograi Thana Chhak. A table was thrown into a nearby jungle.
Assistant engineer (electrical) Madan Sahu visited the office Thursday and assessed the extent of damage. Sahu alleged that electricity bills to the tune of Rs 35,000 were looted and assets worth Rs 70,000 were vandalised by the locals. He has filed a complaint against six persons.
The reports said that due to frequent power-shedding, local people have been facing a lot of problems with their work at private and government offices having been disrupted. School and college students could not study in the evenings due to power outage.
Locals had drawn the attention of the electrical staff about the frequent power outage time and again, but of no avail.
As power outage continued, hundreds of women gheraoed the office of Chandaneswar electrical section and blocked the road September 7 for several hours. They had also vandalised the vehicle of the SDO. The next day, students of RRHS College had submitted a memorandum to the SDO about sorting out the power outage problem. PNN