• I feel like tearing my hair when the power supply is disrupted without any schedule — Randhir Ojha, a Class XI student of DAV School.

• We remained sleepless last night because there was no electricity — Utkarsh Birwani, a lawyer.

• Due to frequent power cuts, the cost of running the generator has gone up from Rs 1,500 to Rs 3,000 per month — Prakash Budhia, a businessman.

These are just a few of the innumerable grievances that the people of Jharkhand would air on any given day vis-a-vis the power situation in the state.

And they are a reminder to the fact that the proposed power reforms, the outcome of the Union Government’s Electricity Act, 2003 has run into rough weather even before receiving formal clearance from the state government.

‘‘We had sought more time to honour the Act. Now the Union Ministry of Power has accepted our plea and set October 9 as the deadline to implement reforms’’, T Nandkumar, Jharkhand State Electricity Board chairman, told The Indian Express.

In fact, the reforms envisaging unbundling of the JSEB into four autonomous companies to look after power generation, transmission and distribution independently, were approved in a meeting of the state Cabinet on March 29.

The nomenclature of these companies — Jharkhand Rajya Vidyut Utpadan Nigam Ltd, Jharkhand Rajya Vidyut Vitran Nigam Ltd and Jharkhand Rajya Vidyut Vikas Nigam Ltd — and their memorandum of articles were also okayed.

But before the state government notified the Cabinet’s decision, Munda put his foot down in the face of a majority of the JSEB’s employees going up in arms demanding to stay put with the JSEB. ‘‘This compelled us to approach the Union Power Ministry seeking six more months to set the reforms rolling’’, said a senior JSEB officer on condition of anonymity.

... contd.