Tripunithura: Councillors, led by Maradu municipality chairperson Ajitha Nandakumar, along with residents, held a sit-in protest at the Maradu Kerala State Electricity Board (KSEB) office on Wednesday. The demonstration was against the delay in restoring power supply, which was disrupted due to heavy rain and wind on Tuesday.
Delay in Power Restoration
Nandakumar stated that even after 24 hours, KSEB failed to restore power, despite being promptly informed about the outage. The councillors expressed their frustration after KSEB officials cited a lack of sufficient staff as the reason for the delay. The power outage caused significant inconvenience to residents, as many areas remained without electricity throughout the night and into the following day.
Although a KSEB assistant engineer assured the council that power would be restored soon, the councillors claimed there was no notable progress on the ground. The protest escalated as they accused KSEB authorities of misleading both the council and the public regarding the restoration timeline.
Demands of the Protesters
The protesters demanded immediate restoration of electricity across all municipal areas and urged the authorities to hire additional staff urgently to prevent such delays in the future. They emphasized that the lack of manpower should not be an excuse for prolonged power cuts, especially during adverse weather conditions.
Damage in Tripunithura
Meanwhile, in Tripunithura, many cables were damaged due to large tree branches falling and fibre roofs being blown off high-rise buildings. Sankaran Namboothiri, a resident of Vadakke Kotta, said, "The power outage that began at 8pm on Tuesday is yet to be resolved in most of the areas of the municipality." He added that although the fallen tree branches were cleared by Wednesday morning, power was still not restored in many neighborhoods.
The residents and councillors vowed to continue their protest until their demands are met, highlighting the urgent need for a reliable power supply system in the region.
