Transformers without fencing at Nayasarak in Cuttack. Picture by Badrika Nath Das

Cuttack, Sept. 19: Power distribution transformers across Cuttack city lack safety shields despite a high court order making it mandatory some seven years ago.

The lack of safety measures is causing concern among the public, especially as it is monsoon now.

“Safety becomes all the more important during the rains, as chances of death by electrocution increases with the onset of rain,” said Sheikh Aslam ,39, a resident of Sutahat.

There are 130-odd distribution sub-stations across the city, with (approximately) 926km of wires drawn to provide electricity and around 1,000 transformers under the power distribution system. But most transformers lack even a barbed wire fencing around them.

A Central Electrical Supply Company (Cesco) official, however, said: “Building fences around transformers is an ongoing process. But recurring theft of barbed wires makes things difficult for us. The oil from the transformers, too, is often stolen.”

“Keeping in view available funds, fencing work is being undertaken in a phased manner, giving priority to vulnerable transformers. Safety measures are taken care of for five to six transformers every month,” Cesco’s Cuttack (electrical) circle general manager N.K. Mishra told The Telegraph today.

“As of now, fencing and safety measures have been taken care of for 232 vulnerable transformers,” Mishra added. At Nayasarak, jeweller Jayanti Lal alleged: “Repeated representations for proper fencing or relocation of the transformer in front of my shop have yielded no results.”

Maitree Sansad, a city-based NGO, has filed a PIL following the recent death of a cow after coming in contact with an unshielded transformer at Jagatpur.

The petition has sought direction of the high court for “immediate fencing of all open transformers to prevent short circuit and to prevent danger to life and health of cattle, pedestrians and children in different parts of Cuttack city”.

Acting on it, the two-judge bench of Chief Justice V. Gopala Gowda and Justice B.N. Mohapatra directed Cesco authorities on Thursday to file a status report on fencing around transformers in the city when the court takes up the case on Monday.

Orissa High Court had taken up the issue when the NGO filed a PIL on this matter in 2004. Acting on it, the high court had on November 11, 2004 ordered Cesco “to take all precautionary measures to ensure that the lives of people near the transformers are not in danger”.

The NGO’s member adviser Rabinarayan Mohapatra has now in a fresh PIL alleged that “Cesco officials in Cuttack have failed miserably to implement the high court order”.