Suspension doesn't shock electricity staff

daltonganj: the suspension of six officials of the local electricity department -- the executive engineer (mrt), the assistant engineer (rural), the junior engineer (rural), operators and helper -- for the lapses on april 13 which caused the electrocution of 28 people in a ramnavami procession, has failed to tone up the department. a visit to the department here will show that officials are still indifferent to public complaints.the times of india recently met se (electricity) sk sharma. the soft spoken sharma was honest enough to say that he had become a `bheegee billi' (a wet cat). once he was a `sher' (lion). he says `i am in the mud. how can i run?'. the se goes on, `yahan logon ka dabao bahut hai. sab garbar ko seedha karna mangtey hain, kya karein?' the april 13 electrocution of 28 people has exposed the electricity department. everything is topsy-turvy in this department. can it be believed that batteries in the sub-station were without distilled water over the last many months? the most important part, the `breaker', was non-functional over the last couple of years. on the night of april 9, four days ahead of the night of incident, the ee (rural), ae(rural) and je (rural) were fast asleep at their quarters, and it was, sources said, the poor se who was found sitting at the bairya more sub station. the state electricity minister shyam rajak, during his april 13 visit here, was speechless to find gross deficiencies in the department. he parried newsmen's queries on this account. the bpcc chief chandan bagchi was so agitated at his press conference here that he demanded immediate suspension of the se (electricity) sk sharma. `public ka poora gussa bijlee vibhag par hain,' comments a pan walla whose son survived the electrocution.