High Tension (HT) consumers of the Bangalore Electricity Supply Company (Bescom) had an opportunity to air their grievances before Energy Minister D K Shivakumar regarding poor services at a few places which affected their business.
During an interactive session with top 100 HT consumers of Bescom here on Wednesday, considered to be the backbone of the power company, the consumers expressed their happiness with power supply when compared to neighbouring states of Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. The consumers, however, demanded better services for industrial growth in the State. Prabhakar Hegde of Himatsingka Woven Private Limited at Doddaballapur said his firm produces export quality silk. Due to power outage, we are forced to depend on diesel generator sets.
“We have an outage of 40 hours a month which is affecting our business,” said Hegde.
S Sathyanarayana of Sri Lakshmi Foundry, Harihar near Davangere, said that unscheduled load shedding continued to pose challenges. “We incur Rs eight lakh loss whenever there is load-shedding. If there are five such outages, our loss touches about Rs 40 lakh,” informed Sathyanarayana. Rajat Kumar, of SEC Cement Plant in Gauribidanur, was all praise for Bescom. “Thanks to uninterrupted power supply, we are ranked the best cement plant in terms of quality, as well as quantity,” said Kumar.
Damaged power cables
A senior executive with the Prestige Group said that their project on the Outer Ring Road was plagued with a number of problems due to damaged electricity cables.
“There seems to be a lack of co-ordination between various civic agencies. If one agency lays road, the other digs up and in the process, the electricity cables get damaged, leading to power disruption,” said the executive.Energy Minister D K Shivakumar said that the contributions of HT consumers was remarkable.
“We are purchasing power from various states by paying a huge price. A good share of the power goes for charity. Had there not been the HT consumers, the electricity companies would not have survived,” he said.
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