Patna, June 13: Despair greeted complainants at a redressal camp organised by the power board to look into consumers’ woes.

As the camp started, there was a power cut for one-and-a-half hours, and the people as well as the officials were forced to carry on with the work in the dark.

A total of 109 complaints, including those of alleged electricity thefts, irregularity in electricity supply and installation of electric poles and wires in rural areas, delay in payment and non-payment to retired employees among others, were raised today at the camp. The camp was organised at the office of the general manager of Central Electricity Supply Area of Bihar State Electricity Board (BSEB) at Daroga Rai Road in Patna.

Consumers of BSEB from across the state expressed their grievances directly to P.K. Rai, chairman of the board, Dr Rana Awadhesh, member of the administration, BSEB, S.K.P. Singh, the general manager of Patna Electric Supply Undertaking (Pesu) and other top-level official of the board.

A majority of complaints were related to rural electrification. “I had applied for an electricity supply for running motors at wells in our village in 2004, so that the villagers could get adequate water supply for irrigation purposes. No electric poles of wire have been installed till date but the bills have been coming regularly. Earlier, I had filed several complaints regarding this issue. Recently, I had filed an application under Right to Information Act with the board to know about the status of my complaint and to my surprise, no action had been initiated. Thereafter, I complained about this matter in the chief minister’s janta darbar on April 18 and again took the matter in front of electricity board on May 9 but all in vain. Hence, today I complained about this issue to the chairman and he has assured me that proper enquiry would be conducted into this issue and concerned officials would be paying a site visit by July 18,” said Jagannath Singh, a resident of Baurhi village in Dhanarua block, Patna district.

This is the sixth time since January 10 this year, that the chairman of the electricity board himself, along with other senior officials of the board, heard the consumer grievances and issued respective instructions for corresponding redressal on every second Monday of the month.

However, recently the officials felt that many of the issues pertain to grassroots level and therefore instructions were issued by the board on May 23 about conducting local-level consumer grievance camps.

There were others who had come to complain about no electricity supply in their villages since past many years. “There used to be some electricity supply in my village around 15 years ago. However, now there is no electricity and the old electric poles and wires are in dismal state.”

The chairman of electricity board said such consumer grievance camps are positive for the healthy functioning of the board. “Various types of complaints, including those related to scuffle between consumers, shifting of poles, alleged thefts, rural electrification and delay in payment of pensions and provident funds of retired employees of the board among others were raised at the camp,” Rai said.