Staff shortage hits power supply in Venkatapuram, Wazeedu in Mulugu

The situation in these two mandals is so pathetic that once power goes out in a village due to rain, speedy wind or low voltage, it takes hours or and sometimes, even days to restore them

Mulugu: The villages of Venkatapuram and Wazeedu mandals are facing power outages and other electricity issues, apparently due to shortage of power staff in the area.

The situation in these two mandals is so pathetic that once power goes out in a village due to rain, speedy wind or low voltage, it takes hours or and sometimes, even days to restore them. Whenever villagers complain about the delay in restoring power in their villages, the power officials say they don’t have people to take up repairs. The situation has been this since the beginning of this year.

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Sources say just two staff are maintaining each substation in these two mandals, whereas at least four persons are needed to take up work in a substation. While the supply is being done in 97 villages in 35 panchayats in these two mandals, there are only six assistant linemen, three line inspectors, an assistant engineer and a junior engineer, to take care of the maintenance and operations.

Electricity was being supplied to over 18,000 households, about 3,000 agricultural connections, 1200 odd connections under category-11 and about 38 under industrial power connections in these two mandals through four substations. To maintain power supply to such a huge area a lot of staff is needed, but the Discoms are not taking steps to increase manpower, though the employees unions have been asking to do for a long time. Staff to meet consumer complaints are minimal despite consumer connections and complaints having increased manyfold in the last decade, said an employees union leader.

This shortage has also increased the workload of the existing staff, further straining their capacity to maintain the expected service standards. The shortage of technical hands was prolonging their response time in case of power cuts, the sources said, adding that the shortage of technical hands on such a large scale has affected the consumer services directly.