Balrampur: Jhalpi Para village in Chhattisgarh’s Balrampur district got electricity connection for the first time. The region was deprived of power supply since Independence. This comes few weeks after ANI had reported the discontent of residents of the village over the absence of power supply. Locals told ANI, “We felt as if we were still the slaves of Britishers as even after more than 70 years of Independence there had been no electricity here. We want to thank the media for raising the issue. Earlier also, we had approached the concerned officials, MLAs, but to no avail. It is after the media highlighted this problem they took note of it.”
R Naamdev, engineer-in-charge said it was through media he came to know about the absence of electricity in the village. He said, “I came to know about this through you. I was not aware that there was no electricity in that village. Locals told us though transformers were installed five years ago, the meters were installed a few months back, yet there was no electricity. However, the process has now been completed.”
On February 23, ANI had reported the discontent of residents of the village over the absence of power supply there even while claiming that they received electricity bills regularly. The villagers alleged there is no electricity connection in the houses but meters have been installed due to which they are receiving electricity bills. The district administration, however, denied the claim of villagers receiving electricity bill while assuring supply will be provided soon. In March 2018, the Govt had stated of the 18,452 villages that were power deprived 3 years ago, 17,181 have been electrified. Others are uninhabited or classified as grazing reserves.
