Kendrapara: Lantern repairers in the district are keeping their fingers crossed on a windfall of sort what with the three-tier rural polls are round the corner. These handmade lamps play an important role in polling booths.
Lanterns are an integral part of an election as it is required at each polling station to illuminate the booth. Recently, the district administration has verified the stock of lanterns in the strong room to make sure that they are fit to be used.
As many as 3,698 booths will come up in nine blocks under Kendrapara district. Elections will be held here in five phases between February 13 and February 21. Each booth will have one lantern.
District collector Muralidhar Mallikin said the administration will need about 850 lanterns during each phase. He said the administration will need two sets of lantern as the gap between two poll dates is only one day. Thus the district administration will need nearly 1700 lanterns.
The district administration has a stock of 800 lanterns while at least 500 more will be repaired to make them operational.
“We are going to repair the lanterns very soon to make them operational before the election days. The district administration is going to buy about 700 to 800 new lanterns,” Mallick said.
As there are not too many lantern repairers in the township, the existing few will make a hay in the coming days, Sk Sultan, a lantern repairer of the township, said.
“While verifying the stocked lanterns it was found that most of them are defective. ‘Oil caps, collars, burners, lantern glass are in bad condition. Some of them have damaged bases and need urgent repair,” Mallik said.
“We repair lanterns during summer season as electricity plays a hide and sick game. Lanterns are also in demand during pre-cyclone and pre-flood situation. As it is a seasonal business, we repair torchlights and stoves to run our families. Now that elections have come, we have an opportunity to make a quick buck,” Jakir, another lantern repairer at the old bus stand, said.
As lantern repairers are few in number, whosoever gets an order from the district administration, he may engage fellow repairers.
One-and-half decades back, kerosene lantern played an important role in most households in rural areas.
However, the Rajiv Gandhi Gramin Bidyutikaran Yojana and Biju Kutir Jyoti Yojana trought in a sea change in the rural landscape. The use of kerosene lanterns has come down. Abundant use of solar lamps and charging lamps in households have also affected the business of the lantern repairers. PNN