Kolkata: State Power minister Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay, during his recent meeting, instructed the senior administrative officials of East and West Midnapore to take necessary steps to overcome a huge amount of loss of the department.
The minister had held a high level meeting at Debra in West Midnapore recently, to take stock of the overall situation and the distribution of electricity in both the districts. Top officials of the Power department were also present in the meeting.
One of the focus areas during the meeting was increasing the income of the department. During the meeting, the minister also wanted to know from the officials the names of the pockets where loadshedding was taking place.
The minister also sought block-wise reports from the district officials. He also inquired if there was any village where electrification works have not been done so far.
The minister picked up the issues related to various blocks during the meeting. He stressed on the importance of increasing the income of the department.
He also instructed to conduct proper surveillance to check if the incidents of power theft have been taking place in the districts.
It may be mentioned here that power theft has been a serious problem in some areas, incurring huge loss for the department. The department has already taken up some measures to check such incidents.
It may be mentioned that the high level meeting occurred three days after some parts of Debra plunged into darkness due to the damage in the local transformer.
It has been learnt that the transformer had caught fire, resulting in power cut for three consecutive days.
Hundreds of villagers were seriously inconvenienced due to the incident. Chattopadhyay has instructed the officials of his department to take immediate steps to set up a new transformer in the area.