Showing posts with label powercuts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label powercuts. Show all posts

2 Jun 2010

Electric-“shock”-Bill



Every day as I sit to work
Thinking deeply about what to write
And searching for the content
My UPS starts crying
Shut the PC and let me rest
Yeah, the power has gone
May be
The power cables fought as usual
With roadside tree branches
Or may be
Someone from electricity board
Pulled up the main fuse in our area
Power Minister talks about his achievements with pride
But, he can’t do much to generate more power
Nor reduce the transmission loss
Come rainy season
We have to endure dark nights
Under the shade of candles or emergency lamps
Come summer season
Minister will talk about shortage of water in dams
And reduction of power sharing from other states
There are no official power cuts
But when the sun showers his fury on us
With the thermometers reading higher centigrade
We are destined to use hand-powered fans
To keep ourselves cool
Or we have to take refuge in liquids
But even chilling the liquids becomes impossible
As they play with us keeping our power away
Yet when we get our electricity bill
We find unusual taxes
Unusual sur-charges
Sometimes
They force us to pay double the principal amount
Yeah this is monopoly
Pay it on time whatever amount on bill
Or get your connection taken away
If we call for emergency repair
They say we will come
May be hours or days later
But they will be at home to disconnect
The power cable right on the day
After the bill date
They are sharp at least in this duty
I wonder
Where does all consumer protection groups
Goes hiding
When the power board squeezes money
Out of common people
As we have no other cheaper alternative
To fall back on
We keep paying what’s on the bill
We never get good service for what we pay
There are no provisions for us
To demand reduction in payment
For getting sub-standard service and untold power cuts
They can hike price whenever they want
And if you ask someone about it
They will tell till go to complaint section
Or meet some other officials
I know nothing can be done
And I walk as usual back to home
To play with my power buddy
Shutting on and shutting off my pc
Every other hour
While pursuing my quest to complete the work
With a wait for another “electric-shock-bill.”