Ward member gives ‘counting lessons’ to KSEB staff for frequent outages by paying bills in coins - Onmanorama

Ward member gives ‘counting lessons’ to KSEB staff for frequent outages by paying bills in coins

Kollam: Irked by the frequent power outages in the region, a ward member tried to turn up the heat on the staff of Kerala State Electricity Board (KSEB), by paying the electricity bills of nine households, approximately Rs 10,000, in coins.

It was C Renjith, a local BJP leader and Randalam Moodu ward member of Talavur Grama panchayat in Kollam, who gave the ‘counting lessons’ to stunned KSEB officials. He warned them of paying the bills of the entire households in the ward in coins if the board failed to come out with a solution to the frequent power disruptions, sometimes over 20 times in a single day.

The incident happened at the KSEB Pattazhy section office on Monday, the last date for residents to pay bills before officials resorted to cutting the power supply of defaulting households.

Renjith arrived at the KSEB office with electricity bills of nine households and remitted the amount in coins. An approximate amount of Rs 10,000 was paid in separate covers with the due amount. Soon, all the staff of the section office assembled and began to count the heap of coins lying before them.

“We are not encountering scheduled power cuts. On some days, we encounter over 20 power outages…there will be electricity for five minutes and then there will be no power for the next 15 minutes. Sometimes, there will be electricity for one hour and then the power will go off for the next five minutes. Thus, we face continuous power outages. This has led to electronic devices in many households getting damaged. This pathetic situation has been prevailing here for some time now. We’ve lodged numerous complaints with the panchayat commission and other bodies. They cite that the presence of many trees in the region is resulting in frequent electricity disruptions, but fail to initiate timely measures including cutting off the tree branches leaning on electric wires,” Renjith told Manorama Online.

“There were coins of Rs 1, 2, 5 and 10. The money was taken from the houses and converted into coins from the temple," Ranjith said adding that protests should only trouble the concerned authorities and not the public.

"We don't have to trouble the public. If it is a problem in the panchayat, then only the concerned department should be troubled. If the protest is on the road, people will be inconvenienced. When the coins were given, the employees looked as though a wasp had stung them. Since it’s an accepted form of legal tender, they can't say it won’t be accepted. It was given in the afternoon, and they sat till 5 pm to finish counting it," Ranjith said.