Mau town, Chitrakoot district. Half way between Allahabad and Chitrakoot is one of Chitrakoot district’s most populous blocks – Mau. Thousands pass through Mau town to go to Allahabad every day for work. The block headquarters as well as the villages around it, a population of over 15,000 have been in darkness since 1 August, due to faulty equipment.
Suneeta, a resident of Mau, said that since the beginning of August, there is electricity only for 3 hours each night, and that too only after midnight. Other residents pointed out that without electricity for such long periods, they are rarely able to charge their mobile phones. Children are unable to study during the day, and even everyday chores like getting wheat ground have to be put on hold.
Residents pointed out that like every other year, most hours this summer too were spent in darkness. Sometimes there are problems with transmission owing to faulty transformers and poor quality transmission wires and on other occasions there is heavy load shedding. This time, it is the machinery at the Power House supplying electricity to Mau block’s 57 gram panchayats that has developed major faults and needs to be replaced.
Several requests have been made to the local Electricity Department to replace the transformer and the machinery at the Power House in Mau. Some months ago a much smaller transformer was finally installed but clearly the replacement is far from sufficient for Mau.
While the local officers in the department are saying that the damaged equipment costs 50 lakhs and attempts are being made to procure new machinery, sources claim that the damage amounts to almost a crore and the lackadaisical attitude of those in the Electricity Department is largely responsible for the delay in fixing the situation.
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