Finally, power cuts to reduce in Kalva

THANE: The January agitation by thousands of shopkeepers from Kalva and Kharegaon to protest against the unusually long Planned Load Shedding
(PLS) in their area this year has, at last, turned as successful as they wanted. The Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company (MSEDCL) has bifurcated its Kalva division so as to subject Kalva to minimum PLS hours on par with the city of Thane.

Satish Karpe, the Chief Engineer (CE) in charge of the Bhandup Zone of the company informed Thane Plus that the MSEDCL top brass took the decision on the subject only two weeks back. Karpe informed that the Thane division has been revised to Thane I division and Kalva Division has been split up to remove Kalva area from it and merge with the new Thane II Division.

The City Engineer added that a new Mumbra division has also been created and the new divisions have begun functioning as well. The official informed that the three sub-divisions came into existence some two weeks ago but the MSEDCL did not organise a public event to formally announce the revision of the Thane and Kalva divisions. As a result, the people were not aware of the new divisions coming into force.

The revision of the Kalva divisions has given a pleasant surprise to the residents of the region. The electricity consumers of the region as well as the business community of the area are now being subjected to just around three-and-a-half hours of PLS a day which is half of the PLS hours they used to suffer till the new Thane II division came into force. The new Mumbra division, however, continues to reel under seven hours of PLS every day.

Notably, the erstwhile Kalva division comprised Kalva, Mumbra and Sheel sub-divisions. While Kalva sub division was in losses of below 25 per cent, the MSEDCL suffered losses of more than 60 per cent in Mumbra and Sheel sub-divisions. As a result, the aggregate loss of the Kalva division was above 40 per cent due to which it was subjected to PLS of around six to seven hours a day.

The business community from Kalva were up in arms against the unusually long PLS hours alleging that they were made to pay for the losses in Mumbra and Sheel. The community resorted to a dharna outside the office of the Kalva division to demand that Kalva sub-division be removed from Kalva division and merged with Thane division so that the area is subjected to lesser PLS hours like Thane.

The scale of the agitation compelled the state power firm to take steps to consider the demands. The agitation also shook the politicians off their slumber. An all party agitation was organised outside the office of the Kalva division within days of the agitation of the shopkeepers to demand what the business community of the region had demanded.

The MSEDCL authorities then decided to heave off the Kopri sub-division from the Thane division as well as Kalva sub-division from Kalva division to form the Thane II division. The Thane division, excluding Kopri sub-division, was then treated as Thane I division. The MSEDCL top brass decided to create Mumbra division from the Mumbra and Sheel sub-divisions.