Coffee loving Kodagu reeling under power cuts

Madikeri, Nov 16 (UNI) The unscheduled power cuts in Kodagu are throwing normal life out of gear, affecting business and local industries.

People have been organising protests in different parts as the Karnataka government had promised that there would not be any power cuts in Kodagu.

Local MLC M C Nanaiah, when asked about this, lambasted the ruling BJP government, saying it has failed to manage the power crisis.

He said Kodagu has the record of making 100 per cent payment of electricity bills, but still it is being neglected.

He promised to talk to the chairman of KPTCL shortly and demand uninterrupted power supply.

Kodagu customers use only minimum power, compared to other districts. ''We use just three lakh 80,000 units of electricity per day in Kodagu,'' he said.

When he was the minister in J H Patel's cabinet he got the governemnt to exempt Kodagu from power cuts. The reason being it is the smallest district using minimum quantity of power, he said.

Being a mainland district, the people here have been suffering from continuous power cuts during rainy season due to falling of trees and natural calamities. Kodagu is also the main catchment area for Cauvery river basin, the source of irrigation and drinking water to other places in Karnataka, he said.

But things have taken a turn for the worse. Kodagu people are affected by irregular power supply. The KPTCL should schedule the timings of power cuts. Sometimes, even during midnight and during early morning hours power is cut. The cut starts from 0900 hrs and lasts till evening.

Business people and others have to entirely depend on generators and inverters. The generator and inverter dealers are the only business community who welcome the cuts as they reap a windfall in sales. And as this is also the coffeee harvesting season, coffee growers are suffering a great deal as they use machines to harvest the coffee crops.

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