Jharsuguda: Irked over repeated power failures, angry Jharsuguda residents vandalised WESCO office situated in front of Income Tax Office and thrashed a sub-divisional officer (SDO) on Wednesday.
They also vandalised furniture�s of the WESCO Office and had blocked the road for several hours in the protest.
According to the eye witness, since morning there was a power cut. At around 10 A.M., a group of residents went to the WESCO Office to know the reason for the power failure.
However, they reportedly failed to get a proper response from WESCO staff. This led to a spat which took a turn for the worse. The group of resident vandalised the furniture and had lock down the office.
Later, the district administration officials, Sub Collector Sukant Tripathy had rushed to the spot and tried to calm down the protesters.
They also scuffled with the WESCO SDO Rashmi Ranjan Jena who came for a dialogue with the residents. He was later rescued by the police officials. A Car Belonging to the SDO was also damaged.
Ashish Patjoshi, Executive Engineer WESCO said that �Due to lighting, feeder equipment had damaged for which the restoration of power had been delayed,” he said.
He, however, said that till now we haven�t filed an FIR but we have decided to file it soon.
According to the WESCO sources, A 11KV line of Feeder one in Mangal Bazaar area had experienced a conductor snapping due to which the areas under had suffered a power failure. It was only later in the evening that the power supply was restored.
