Power outage forces villagers to pay for mobile charging & water pumping

In the Baillo village, long queues of people were seen on the Saturday evening as they waited for their turn to charge their mobile batteries.

GORAKHPUR Taking advantage of the prolonged suspension of power supply in rural areas of the district, private players are charging villagers ₹10 for charging mobile phone batteries and ₹50 for pumping water with portable generators.

People are rushing to shops to get their phones charged. (HT Photo)

In the Baillo village, long queues of people were seen on the Saturday evening as they waited for their turn to charge their mobile batteries. Local residents Dharmendra Gupta and Prashant Shukla said that their villages have been without a power supply since Friday midnight. Therefore, people are rushing to shops to get their phones charged.

Electricity supply to 250 villages from Karwal to Majh Gawan power substations has been suspended since Friday evening. Similarly, the shutdown of the power supply from Padri Bazar has crippled the water supply in Shatabdi Puram, Indraprastha Puram, Manas Vihar, and Sarasvati Puram colonies. In these areas, people are forced to pay ₹100 to pump water up to their storage tanks for 10 minutes using generators mounted on auto-rickshaws or other small vehicles.

Notably, most of these colonies have no water supply line and residents only have a submersible pump that became inoperative due to the lack of power supply. This lack of power supply disrupted daily life in Manbela and Fatehpur areas near BRD Medical College as well.