Discoms pay no heed to electrical safety

HYDERABAD: Lack of awareness on electrical safety has led to fatal accidents across the state. Power utilities failed to create intensified awareness over electrical safety in rural and urban areas, resulting in electrocution of people and animals. Many citizen welfare organisations and others have time and again urged discoms to conduct awareness programmes on electricity safety but to no avail.

A moment of carelessness or a piece of faulty equipment can cause an electrical accident. If people learn about safe use of electricity, the chance of injury is less, goes the understanding.

D.C. Sailoo of Bharat Kisan Sangh said “If discoms declare the main reasons for accidents, people can become more cautious while handling electric equipment.”

Sailoo submitted a written complaint to the Telangana State Electricity Regulatory Commission (TSERC) suggesting that workshops, graffiti on walls and flexis should be there in all electricity offices, and mandal offices.

Giving ex gratia to the kin of victims of electrical shock is not the end-all solution, he opined.

Giving statistics, he said that in areas coming under TSSPDCL, 264 persons, including six staff members, were electrocuted in the 2021-22 financial year with Medak district reporting the highest deaths at 36. Overall, 865 animals were killed because of the same reason, he said. In the 2022-23 financial year, 112 people and 385 animals have been electrocuted.  

TSSPDCL chairman and managing director G. Raghuma Reddy said that they had carried intensified awareness over electrical safety.