Thodupuzha: The Thodupuzha mini civil station's old block 'plunged into darkness' on Thursday after the Kerala State Electricity Board (KSEB) pulled the fuse for non-payment of bill dues.
The functioning of 28 offices were affected. KSEB said it had served several notices seeking Rs 1.24 lakh before taking action.
The revenue department paid Rs 15,000 towards arrears by noon but the connection was reinstated only by 5 pm after the Thodupuzha tahsildar held talks with the KSEB's executive engineer.
Public service delivery was affected as the taluk office was housed in the old block. Offices of the departments of agriculture, scheduled caste development, employment, taxes, and the office of the child welfare committee could not function as all computers shut down due to the prolonged outage. The treasury functioned partially on a power back-up. There is only one consumer meter for all the 28 offices in the old block. The failure of one office to pay up put the entire building in jeopardy. The outage on Thursday was due to 11 of the 28 offices accruing overdue.
The family court in the old block was spared as it had its own consumer meter.
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