Sirsi: Both rural and urban areas of Uttara Kannada district are facing a lot of power supply problems due to heavy rain, floods and cyclone in the last three months. However, Hubballi Electricity Supply Company Ltd (Hescom) which is supposed to respond to these problems is facing acute shortage of staff.

The 11 taluks of Uttara Kannada district come under four divisions of Hescom namely Sirsi, Karwar, Honnavar and Dandeli. Of the total 1,865 sanctioned posts in these divisions, only 1,039 are currently occupied. This means that 1,039 people have to manage the work of 1,865 people. This includes 22 posts of assistant engineers, 56 junior engineers, six assistant executive engineers, five junior executive engineers, 24 operators and 33 metre-readers. However, the posts of 126 linemen which are vacant are affecting the rural areas the most.

Apart from this, 58 posts in the maintenance section, 498 posts in distribution section, 25 in metre and transformer testing unit, eight in store division and 14 posts of drivers are also vacant.

“Most of the times, the lineman does not turn up for one or two days in case of power supply problems in interior villages. One lineman is in-charge of two to three villages and in times of natural calamities, they cannot reach out to all the villages. This causes delay,” said Praveen Madiwal, a customer.

Sirsi division of Hescom is further divided into Sirsi, Siddapur, Yellapur and Mundgod sub-divisions. Of the 628 vacant posts here, 288 are yet to be filled. Here only 
192 linemen carry out the work of 395 linemen which includes chief and assistant linemen.

“Almost 50% of linemen posts and 42% of engineer posts are vacant. We bring the issue of staff crunch to the notice of authorities concerned every time we submit a report. However, we have not yet got any response,” said Hescom Sirsi division Executive Engineer Deepak Kamat.

He informed that the process of recruitment for the post of linemen has completed and Uttara Kannada is expecting a good number of appointments.