Tribal Families In Anakapalle Face Blackout Over Sudden Bills
VISAKHAPATNAM: Eleven tribal families in P. Kotnabelli, a hill tribe village under T. Arjapuram panchayat in Ravikamatham mandal of Anakapalle district, were left without electricity after officials cut meter wires on pending bills, plunging them into darkness for days. Villagers say the unexpected outage has made life extremely difficult, especially at night.
They reminded that the state government had earlier promised free electricity for SC/ST households; initially 50 units in 2008, then this number increased to 100 units for families consuming up to 200 units in 2019. But these families remembered that they had not received an electric bill for nearly 15 years and when large bills suddenly came due they could not pay them.
Most families work as seasonal workers during the rice harvest and earn irregular income. They claim that the supply was cut off without taking into account their financial difficulties.
Villagers said, “We can pay in installments. We asked for some time, but the authorities cut off our connection, saying their jobs were at risk.” “We only have two light bulbs and a fan. We don’t know how the bills got so high.”
Without electricity, nights became unsafe and uncomfortable. “How can we survive like this? We do odd jobs to pay our bills,” they said. Padi Bennayya, Nandaile Ramu, Sunkara Apparao, Vante Gurumurthy and Tubi Lakshmi expressed disappointment that the authorities ignored repeated calls for help.
