Virender Sehwag after his ton against Bangladesh in the World Cup 2011 opening match. (AFP)

Bhagalpur, Feb. 23: When the Nawab of Najafgarh was tearing apart the Bangla attack in the World Cup opener, most of Bihar missed his cuts and drives because of power cuts.

When Team India team will be fighting a battle of nerves with Kevin Pietersen and company next Sunday, the cricket fans in the state will be fighting a lost battle with power.

The cricket crazy people of the state are just not loving it. They want to watch every bit of battle between willow and cherry. But they don’t have the power!

The acute electricity problem has converted the state into a virtual black zone. Most of the residents are finding it impossible to switch on the television. The TV dealers are livid, too. “We have missed a good business opportunity. Very few customers have shown interest in buying new television sets before this World Cup,” said Manoj Kumar, a salesman of a reputed electronic shop in Bhagalpur.

Many shopkeepers in districts like Munger, Jamui, Banka, Lakhisarai echoed him. “We have ordered many LCD television sets, keeping in mind the market demands. But the customers have not shown interest mainly because of the poor power supply,” Basudeo Prasad, another salesman at an electronic shop in Munger, said.

Besides the cricket lovers, the students and their parents are also at the mercy of the erratic power supply. The board examinations started today but the power situation is still bleak.

Parents of the students who are appearing for the examinations condemned the state government’s apathy towards the situation. “Revision is very important, especially during the examinations. My daughter had no opportunity to revise properly yesterday because of erratic power supply. Even the inverters have stopped working. She had to fall back upon the lanterns and candles to study,” said Mira Devi, mother of Gunja Kumari, a board examinee. The only beneficiaries of the situation are generator operators. “We used to provide services after evening. But many customers have started approaching us for day services as well,” said Bombom Kumar, a generator operator in Bhagalpur.

But even that has another side to it: generators are posing a threat to the people by polluting the environment. “More than 25,000 children taking the board examination are facing serious problems because of the erratic power supply. Over 30 lakh cricket lovers are being deprived of the World Cup matches,” said Prakash Chandra, a social worker. “The leaders should agitate or show their Gandhigiri before the officers of the central load dispatch in Patna. There’s little we can do,” a BSEB official of Bhagalpur said. The state is receiving less than half its power allocation from the central grid because of poor generation at Talcher Super Thermal Power Plant.