BJP, Congress launch a broadside against BJD over erratic power supply

The State units of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Congress on Sunday launched a scathing attack on the BJD-led dispensation and Tata Power over the erratic power supply. 

Taking a swipe at the BJD-led government and Tata Power, Congress senior leader Bijay Patnaik said, “You may call it power cut or something else, the fact is that people are not getting electricity when they require most. There is power cut when there is no rain. It is unpredictable when the electricity will go and when it will come.”

“It doesn’t seem that the government has any control over the company (Tata Power). District collectors are helpless. And as the officers at Tata Power don’t receive calls, people are at their wit’s end as to whom to contact,” he added. 

Similarly, the BJP spokesperson Satyabrata Panda said, “The Chief Secretary has been spending sleepless nights over electricity problem. They (the BJD) are claiming that Rs20,000 crore has been spent in the last five years to strengthen the infrastructure. But they have wasted the money. They have looted the money. And the Minister should come up with his clarification in this regard. The government had announced that they would install such electric poles that they would withstand the wind blowing at a speed of 300 kmph. They had said they would complete it within five years. Where is the promise? Where are the poles?”

In response to the attacks launched by the BJP and Congress, BJD MP Amar Patnaik said, “The DISCOMs mayn’t have established and tested the disaster recovery plan perfectly. It should be a lesson for them and in case of any bigger such disaster, they should be able to tell our citizens that the power supply would be restored within a specific period."