By IANS,
Lucknow : The Allahabad High Court Tuesday sought within four months a report from the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission on power supply in Uttar Pradesh. It was hearing a plea alleging long power cuts in the state.
The Lucknow bench of Acting Chief Justice Amitabh Lala and Justice Anil Kumar issued the direction on a petition filed by Ashok Pandey.
The petition alleged uninterrupted electricity supply was being given to select politicians’ constituencies in the state while the rest of the areas continued to be without power.
Six districts in the state – Mainpuri (Mulayam Singh Yadav’s parliamentary constituency), Kannauj (constituency of Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav’s wife and MP Dimple Yadav), Rae Bareli (Congress chief Sonia Gandhi’s Lok Sabha constituency), Amethi (Congress MP Rahul Gandhi’s parliamentary constituency), Etawah (district from which Muluayam Singh hails) and Rampur (constituency of Uttar Pradesh Urban Development Minister Mohd Azam Khan), get 24×7 power supply, the petition said.
The petitioner said people in other districts faced power cuts ranging between 6 to 8 hours every day.
He alleged there were political reasons behind uninterrupted power supply to the six districts.
He said that holy cities like Varanasi, Faizabad and Allahabad and many tourist destinations were facing a power crisis.