'Urge Puja committees to give exact power requirement figures'

Kolkata: State Power minister Aroop Biswas has urged all Puja organisers across the state to let the department know through their registered electrician/licensed contractors the exact requirement of power during the Puja days to check mismatch between demand and supply.

"A major difference in the demand-supply mismatch can trigger an incident during the festive season. We appeal to all the Puja organisers that their registered electrician submit a letter to the department clearly mentioning their approximate requirement of electricity during those few days," said Biswas.

He further stated: "It is not, however, mandatory for the Puja committees but if the Power department has prior knowledge about their requirement, a mismatch in demand and supply can be checked, thereby ruling out the possibility of a mishap." For example, if a Puja committee declares that they would require around 5 kw of electricity but its demand eventually reaches 10 kw, it might trigger an incident, the minister explained.

He held a virtual meeting from Vidyut Bhawan with all the district Power officials to take stock of various precautionary measures taken by them to ensure uninterrupted power supply during the Puja days.

The West Bengal State Electricity Distribution Company Limited (WBSEDCL) has already received 41,237 Puja applications from across the state. Connections have been given to most of these committees. Last year, the WBSEDCL had received around 40,124 applications. CESC, this year, received 4,311 applications so far while in 2021, it had given around 4,993 Puja connections.

In a bid to ensure an uninterrupted power supply during the Puja season and also to present any untoward incident during the festival days across Bengal, the state Power department has already deployed nearly around 69,871 employees, including the contractual workers, who will be on streets till Jagadhhatri Puja. Around 3,290 mobile vans will be deployed to repair technical glitches if any. Around 1,536 offices of the department will operate round-the-clock which include around 77 divisional offices, five zonal offices and 536 call centres. All the employees of the department, including senior officials, will work round-the-clock. Leave of employees have been cancelled.

Control rooms have been opened from September 23 that will operate till November 5 after Jagadhhatri Puja is over. The WBSEDCL call centre numbers are 8900793503/8900793504. The toll free number is 19121. CESC toll free number is 1912. Other two control room numbers of CESC are 9831079666/9831083700.