By IANS,
Raipur : Power supply resumed Thursday in Chhattisgarh’s restive southern Bastar region, ending a week of blackout that Maoist guerrillas sparked off by destroying power transmission towers.
Power supply resumed in Bastar, Bijapur, Narayanpur and Dantewada districts with the state-run Chhattisgarh State Electricity Board (CSEB) engineers reinstalling the towers, a government statement said.
Officials said except in Konta area of Dantewada district bordering Andhra Pradesh, normal power supply had returned to the four districts.
Maoists blew up 220 KV high-tension electricity towers in the forests of Dantewada June 5, plunging the region into darkness. The region is home to about four million people.
Mining operations at the three deposits of the National Mineral Development Corp (NMDC) at Bailadilla hills in Dantewada came to a halt in the wake of the blackout.
NMDC, India’s largest iron ore producer and exporter in the public sector, suffered about Rs.120 million of daily losses.
Essar Steel, which has an iron ore beneficiation plant at Bailadilla hills in Kirandul, was also hit. Its supply of high quality iron ore to its own pellet plant at Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh suffered heavily.