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Power men’s strike: Prayagraj DM orders FIR against exec engineer for negligence
The power supply of the district has been handed over to a dozen contractors of the electricity department
During the ongoing strike of the electricity department staff, power engineers too were complicit in making things difficult for the general public in the Sangam city. Taking a strong cognisance, district magistrate Sanjay Kumar Khatri directed officials concerned to register an FIR against the executive engineer of Khusrobagh sub-station on Friday evening.
The DM held a meeting with the power officials and contractors. He instructed them to maintain a special vigilance regarding maintaining proper arrangement of power supply at hospitals and other important places. He also spoke about the possible sacking of more than 150 substation in-charges.
The power supply of the district in the meantime has been handed over to a dozen contractors of the electricity department. The DM said teams had been deployed to restore power supply in localities where it was disrupted.
“An FIR is being lodged against the executive engineer of Khusrobagh sub-station whose negligence came to the fore during the day. Anyone has the right to speak their mind but it is not fair to put the general public to such great inconvenience. All such people will be dealt with strictly,” he warned.
As the district administration had deployed police at most of the sub-stations and power houses, there were no reports of any untoward incident or vandalism from anywhere. “Power supply was disrupted on MLN Medical College campus on Friday morning because of which pathology and microbiology departments did not work”, said principal, MLN Medical College, Dr SP Singh.
However, outpatient department (OPD) and operation theatres (OTs) at the associated hospital of the college, SRN Hospital, functioned smoothly till around 3pm, he added. Dr Singh said OPD and OTs at MD Eye Hospital located at Nakaas Khona functioned properly and Dr Singh himself operated on 107 patients.
Superintendent in-charge, Motilal Nehru Divisional Hospital (Colvin), Dr Nahida Khatoon said, “When the power went off on Friday morning, I made a call to the electricity department but did not get a satisfactory answer. However, as we had proper backup, the OPD and other services ran smoothly.”
“Power supply was disrupted in my locality at 4pm on Thursday and was restored only at around 2pm on Friday. The around 22-hour power disruption led to our invertor getting fully drained and all of us were forced to remain sans any power for hours. Water supply to the house was also disrupted which caused us much inconvenience,” said a resident Haveliya locality of Jhunsi. Residents of localities like Hanumanganj, Katka, Durjanpur, Tulapur and Lekhrajpur also aired similar complaints.
In Preetam Nagar, some areas remained affected but by and large things were under control. The DM said since morning the problem of power failure was reported from Khusrubagh, Hanumanganj, Shankargarh, Jari, Kalyani Devi and Suraj Kund sub-stations in the district.
