A protestor wields a bamboo stick during the rally at Albert Ekka Chowk, Ranchi, on Tuesday. Picture by Prashant Mitra

Residents of Chadri and HB Road staged an hour-long road blockade from noon at Albert Ekka Chowk on Tuesday, protesting against acute power shortage in their areas for the last few days and demanding normal supply.

Hundreds of commuters remained stranded on HB Road and Line Tank Road as agitators blocked the roads with benches and sticks and raised slogans against Jharkhand State Electricity Board (JSEB).

The traffic police, which found it difficult to control the chaos, pressed a team of Rapid Action Police into service.

While the vehicles plying on HB Road and Line Tank Road were diverted through Purulia Road, the ones moving from Jail More and Lalpur Chowk remained stuck, congesting the traffic.

About 40 minutes into the blockade, assistant engineer of JSEB, Ranchi Central, Abhishek Kumar rushed to the protest site to negotiate with the agitators.

The residents complained that both the transformers in their area were old and often remained defunct.

“There is no supply for the last nine days. We have informed JSEB officials but nothing has been done so far. So, we decided to hit the streets,” said Chadri resident Badal Linda.

Though the power board engineer admitted that the transformers were out of order, he said supply had been snapped for the last five days, not nine as claimed. “The transformers have been taken to our Calcutta workshop. They will be repaired soon,” Kumar said, adding that supply would be normalised by Wednesday evening.

The outage has brought normal life to a standstill, claimed agitators. Schoolchildren had to fall back on lamps, while pharmacies could not preserve certain drugs that needed refrigeration. “ It is not possible to run the generator always,” said Jay Ram Prasad, pharmacy owner.