Staff Correspondent:

Several lakhs of people including Sirajganj town dwellers faced immense suffering due to failure of timely power restoration on Tuesday after cyclone Remal battered the country on Sunday and Monday.

A number of electric poles and trees were uprooted; houses and crops were damaged in different parts of the district during the storm.

Though, the storm along with gusty wind came to looser at the evening of Monday, electricity was not restored immediately any part of the district even municipality area after the storm causing immense suffering to the residents.

Locals complained that, due to irresponsible attitude of the authorities concerned, electricity connection was not restored immediately. As a result, sufferings of people including patients and elderly men mounted. Not only that, the works of different government and non-government offices and industries were hampered drastically due to lack of electricity.

Abdul Gani, a resident of Opel Garden area in the town said, “Sirajganj town turned into ghostly town after storm as there was no one to see the matter as guardian. Unfortunately, the situation means that, the town has no guardian to see the public welfare. Town dwellers passed one and half of the day without power supply. Most of the people faced problems becoming failure to pick up water from pumps for want of electricity. Besides, the mobile and internet networks were also snapped due to the power outage. Consequently, communication gap made people disappointed.”

Though, the power department was able to restore power supply at some places in the town after 4:00 pm on Tuesday, many places especially villages are yet to get power supply.

Elite people blamed the negligence by the authorities concerned of the Power Development Board in Sirajganj in context of restoration of power supply.

While talking, Ashith Podder, Executive Engineer of S & D-2, NESCO PLC, Sirajganj told The Daily Sky that, “We did not predict that the storm will be so longer. Due to long duration of the storm, many electric poles and wires were destroyed disrupting power supply. This is why, we took long time to restore the power supply.”

“In future, we will remain alert about it and we are now working to restore the power supply in the rest parts of the town,” he added.