The kickback exposé published in The Telegraph on March 28

Jamshedpur March 31: Jharkhand State Electricity Board (JSEB) proved it could keep its word despite a few rotten apples in its basket, as authorities installed a new transformer last evening in Kiriburu block under Saranda’s buffer zone and told villagers that power supply would resume at night.

Day 18 of the blackout proved lucky for this block, as the transformer arrived within 50 hours of JSEB chairman S.N. Verma’s promise that the burnt-out one would be replaced within “72 hours” of The Telegraph kickback exposé on March 28.

The gleaming 100KVA transformer arrived at the Kiriburu marketplace after 4.30pm to a disbelieving village that immediately burst into cheers. JSEB (Chaibasa circle), which looks after the power supply in Kiriburu, sent the transformer from Jamshedpur’s Transformer Repairing Works. In fact, the new transformer was despatched to Chaibasa late on Thursday from where it was transported to Kiriburu yesterday.

“Hamein umeed nahin thi ki transformer itni jaldi lag jayega. Telegraph akhbar mein transformer ke liye chanda wala mamla aane se yeh sambhav ho paya hai (We had no hope of the transformer getting installed so quickly. It was made possible only because The Telegraph highlighted blackout-and-bribe issue),” Mohammad Yaar, a villager, said.

Neighbour Ram Lakhan Gupta added: “From now on, we won’t pay bribe to get damaged transformers replaced. It is JSEB’s job.”

The marketplace at Kiriburu block has over 100 JSEB consumers.

JSEB (Chaibasa circle) superintending engineer Naresh Prasad said the new transformer had been installed. “We want to spell out clearly that we will ensure maintenance and service of our installations. People should beware of middlemen who exploit them in case of a transformer breakdown.” According to Prasad, the probe into JSEB officials allegedly taking kickbacks to replace the transformer was on.

The only casualty in all this was that Kiriburu residents yesterday quickly lost interest in the signature campaign they had started on Thursday to establish in writing that they paid bribe money to JSEB officials to replace their transformer.

Villagers who coughed up Rs 750 per household as part of a bribe collection drive to grease the palms of JSEB officials — three persons were indicted in Wednesday’s probe — had boldly launched a signature campaign for “asliyat” or “truth”, planning to send the letter to JSEB and West Singhbhum administration.

The letter admitted they had paid Rs 750 per household and given a bulk of the proceeds — Rs 40,000 — to four persons, Shankar Giri, Santosh Prasad Chaurasia, Umesh Bhagat and Anil Prasad, to get the burnt-out transformer replaced. Fifteen signatures were collected on Friday.

Great for Kiriburu’s confidence — no bending one’s backbone before babudom — the campaign would have also served a functional purpose.

It would have helped the probe.

So far, it has not been established with whom the Rs 40,000 bribe money is with — power board engineers P.D. Choudhary (Noamundi) or Bechan Ram (Kiriburu) or the still-unnamed daily wage earner.

It would have put pressure on JSEB to find out the conduit of rural middlemen and officials who live off bribes.