Jharkhand Chief Minister Arjun Munda today okayed the dissolution of the Jharkhand State Electricity Board (JSEB).State Energy Minister Lalchand Mahato had forwarded the file seeking the dissolution. The move is seen as an end to the conflict between Mahato and JSEB chairman Rajib Ranjan. Munda has also approved the reconstitution of the JSEB with B.K. Chauhan as chairman. Chauhan, an IAS officer of the 1974 batch from the Jharkhand cadre, had quit the service early this year to contest and lose the recently concluded Assembly poll in Himachal Pradesh. Chauhan, who lost on a BJP ticket, was considered close to BJP bigwigs including Munda.The other four who were appointed as JSEB members were K.P. Sinha (Distribution and Production), Gopinath Munda (Transmission), Niranjan Rai (Finance) and S.N. Akhori (Rural Electrification). Sources said they were chosen by Mahato. ‘‘Now there will be no problem. The JSEB will move on and end the power problem of the people,’’ claimed Mahato, while speaking to reporters this evening. Ranjan, however, attended office today. Asked for his comment, Ranjan, who had tried to push through power reforms against opposition from Mahato, said: ‘‘I welcome the government’s decision.’’ Incidentally, of the four new JSEB members, Sinha and Akhori have tainted service records. Moreover the reconstitution has come at a time when power breakdowns are a routine in most parts of the state.In fact, load-shedding hours have increased from four hours daily in 1999 to six hours now. The crisis is testimony to the fact that the power situation in this new state has worsened when compared to the days of undivided Bihar.In undivided Bihar, everybody here believed that power generated by three state government-owned power generating units in the region was being diverted to light up Patna.Industrialists and businessmen who were blaming either Mahato or Ranjan, have dropped woken up to the severity of the problem. Federation of Jharkhand Chambers of Commerce (FJCC) has threatened to gherao Ranjan and Mahato if load-shedding didn’t stop within 10 days. ‘‘The people are facing the brunt due to their feud,’’ said FJCC president Gulshan Ajmani.Similarly, Jharkhand Kapda Vaywasayee Sangh has decided to organise a dharna at Albert Ekka Chowk in the city centre to demand uninterrupted power. Two other bodies of industrialists and traders had expressed similar views.
