A delegation of traders and industrialists from different parts of Dhanbad district on Thursday met senior officials of Dhanbad circle of Jharkhand Bijli Vitran Limited and expressed their concern over the problem of more than 10-12 hours of load shedding affecting trade activities.

The delegation led by Rajiv Sharma general secretary of Jharkhand Industries and Trade Association also raised the issue of delay in redressal of complaints with regard to over billing and also delay in allotment of new electric connections, low voltage problem, lack of information about power cut scheduled in industrial areas and lack of any one time settlement scheme for bill defaulters.

Ajit Kumar, General Manager of Dhanbad circle of JBVNL accompanied by Executive Engineer Shailendra Nath Dwivedi on the other hand explained the immediate reasons including the technical snag in transformers of the Putki Grid of Damodar Valley Corporation affecting the load shedding problem and assured to solve the problem by next Sunday (August 14).

Talking to the media after the meeting, Sharma who was also accompanied by the traders and industrialists of different parts of the district, including Dhanbad town, Jharia, Sindri, Saraidhela, Katras, Govindpur as well as Kandra Industrial area said, “We prominently raised the issue of load shedding during the meeting which is creating operational difficulties to the traders and the JBVNL officials further assured that apart from the solution of temporary problem arising from Putki grid a long term solution is also being worked out which is likely to be completed by August end bringing some major positive change in the power supply scenario of the district.”

“With regard to the problem of load shedding being faced by the residents of Saraidhela and surrounding areas of the district the JBVNL officials informed us that underground cable laying work being carried out in the area under the Jharkhand Sampurn Bijli Achchhadan Dhan Yojana is major problem affecting the regular power supply and is likely to be sorted out by month end after the completion of cable laying work,” said Sharma.

“We have explained to the delegation members about our stand on different issues raised by them including the low voltage issue and overall assured them that the significant improvement in the power supply scenario is likely by the end of this month,” Ajit Kumar said.