Bhubaneswar, May 25: Irate power consumers today garlanded an official of Northern Electricity Supply Company of Odisha Limited (Nesco) at Keonjhar, about 300km from here, with shoes in protest against unscheduled power cuts in their area.

The local residents also locked the door of the Nesco alleging that the power company officials were not taking steps to address the power cut issue.

"We have been suffering from power cuts for nearly seven to nine hours everyday in this summer. The electricity officials are not even attending to our complaints," said local resident Debu Patnaik.

Nesco officer Maheswar Sethy was forced to put on a shoe garland around his neck. He was later released only after giving an assurance that he would take up the power line repair works expeditiously.

"The repair works will start within a month. A process has been initiated to set up a new electric grid. Once this is completed, the problems relating to the power cut will be resolved," said Sethy.

In another development, worried over rising complaints of unscheduled power-cuts across the state, chief minister Naveen Patnaik has asked energy department officials to open social media accounts and address the problems of consumers expeditiously.

He has asked the officials to open Twitter and Facebook accounts in three days and asked officials to follow complaints coming in the social media to solve people's problems.

The chief minister also directed officials to engage more human resources and vehicles to provide uninterrupted power supply. Henceforth, field officials would be given adequate financial power to purchase required equipment to take up repair works at the sub-stations and transformers without waiting the clearance of the head office on an emergency basis.

The newly appointed power minister, Prafulla Mallick, has faced the wrath of people across the state following unscheduled power cuts in the state. During a press brief today, he assured customers that the state had enough power to meet consumers' needs.