Public should not be inconvenienced

D.S. Rajshekar

First of all my question is ‘why should there be a power shut down during winter time?’ Traditionally such things occur in Bengaluru only during the summers with the Bescom claiming shortage of power.

So at this time, only the reason is different - maintenance. It may be installing underground cables or other infrastructural works. Why can’t the concerned electricity supply company not plan such things accordingly beforehand without causing inconvenience to the public, especially during the pandemic when people are working from home and students are studying online.

As I, myself, have been an electrical engineer, my opinion on this is that upgrading work is definitely necessary and we have to switch to the latest and feasible technology which can enhance better distribution of power and eases the day-totoday problems of the common public.

But at the outset, it doesn’t mean that the people, who are already under tremendous pressure, should be put to more difficulty. Almost everyone is working from home and is dependent on uninterrupted power 24/7 as the work can come up any time. It is good that at least for children there is some schedule for online classes. But for the professionals, they can be called even in the middle of the night for the updates as they have been provided the favour of working from home by their organisations. In such cases, undisciplined power cuts will affect them badly.

Every house cannot afford to have a backup of hours together even if we live in Silicon city of Bengaluru. It is difficult to sustain.

We are not blaming Bescom on this, but the public too demands some discipline from the civic bodies. When they expect a common man to be punctual in paying his bills, why can’t they return the same kind of service to him? It is a fact that the civic bodies exist because of the public.

Unplanned and unscheduled power outages don’t just affect the consumers, but it also affects the electricity supply company’s revenue.

While no resident is against Bescom or KPTCL, we are just saying that the company can surely discuss such things beforehand and consider the issues that the public can face due to outages and then they could plan accordingly by providing schedules to the public.

Many other countries and states have adopted the practice of notifying and discussing such works with the public and plan it accordingly. Bescom has to take some initiative to avoid causing inconvenience to the public.

(D.S. Rajshekar, President of Citizens Action Forum.)