Hinjili, the home turf of Odisha chief minister Naveen Patnaik, has been in dark since the day cyclone Phailin hit the district on October 12.

On the evening of Diwali, power supply was provided for a brief period from 8 PM to 8 AM. Only a few areas like medical and Nuagrah block colony were fortunate.

If the CM’s constituency and its periphery are engulfed in darkness, one can well imagine the state of affairs of Odisha that lives in villages.
Hinjili, a semi-urban town located at a distance of 23 km from Berhampur city in Ganjam district came to limelight when Biju Janata Dal (BJD) chief Naveen Patnaik choose the assembly seat and won the election for three consecutive terms. This assembly constituency constitutes of two blocks, Hinjili and Shergarh. Both the blocks have as many as 43 gram panchayats.

This area is among a few blocks that has been badly affected by both the natural disasters; cyclone and flood on 24 October within a span of two weeks.
Even after three weeks, visitors approaching Hinjili town on National Highway-59 from Berhampur city are greeted by fallen electric poles with wires scattered everywhere, even sticking to trees.

On the afternoon of November 5, few workers were seen loading electric poles on a tracker (four-wheeler) at the entrance of the town.  Students of the Hinjili college could be seen gossiping with their hands casually resting on the hanging wires. Near the bus stand at the centre of town, a few labourers were seen gathering electric wires while others were engaged in pole works.

Southco’s junior engineer Nanda Kishore Das who was present at the site stated that about 70 per cent restoration work has been completed and power has been supplied in majority of wards of the Hinjili NAC having more than 8700 domestic electric connections and around one thousand commercials.
According to Das, the grid line from Berhampur to Hinjili was completely damaged and another line from Taratarini was non-functional. “We have started work on a new line and restoring the old line temporarily,” he said while explaining the reason of delay in restoration work.

“It will take another 12 to 15 days for power supply to reach rural areas as the restoration work has already been started,” said Das who is working in a high profile area represented by none other than chief minister.

A local politician who was present at the site had defended the engineer saying that shortage of manpower was to blame for the slow progress.
According to the information provided by Southco, around 3500 workers of Southco, Wesco, Reliance Energy, discoms of Mumbai, Delhi Rail, OHPC, PGCIL and NHPC have been engaged in the restoration work and about 140 of them have been working in Hinjili NAC.

According to the official information of Southco, 37 out of the damaged 49 33KV feeders have been activated. Similarly 2539 transformers out of damaged 8037 have been activated.

SOUTHCO claims that they have already completed restoration work in 19 blocks out of the total 22 and 15 NACs in the district of Ganjam. Electric connection to three blocks namely Buguda, Polasara and Kodala could not be restored till date.

“Half of the town is still in dark and other half is lucky in getting power supply from night to morning,” stated BJP state general secretary Debanand Mohaptra.

Corroborating Mohaptra’s statement, a ruling BJD party man also admitted that 40 to 50 percent of the town still remains in dark and it would take another month for power supply to reach rural areas.  

“Southco and administration claims of restoring everything but in reality a majority of households are in dark,” said Mohaptra He added that the restoration work was being done casually.

As per a private survey with inputs from local people staying in various blocks of the district, only 50-60 percent restoration work in NACs and only 20-30 percent in rural areas has been completed.

In a review meeting on October 31, chief minister Naveen Patnaik had called for an immediate restoration work and had made restoration of electricity the priority.