India News | AAP to Protest in Noida over Power Cuts in UP

Noida, Jun 21 (PTI) The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Wednesday said it will hold a demonstration in Noida on Thursday to protest against power cuts in Uttar Pradesh amid sweltering heat in the state.

The agitation is scheduled at a time when 76 deaths have taken place in the last seven days in Ballia district of eastern UP amid heatwave conditions in the region, with a state government official flagging power outages as one of the factors responsible for the worsening condition of patients before they wee brought at the district hospital.

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AAP's Gautam Buddh Nagar unit president Bhupendra Singh Jadaun said his party will hold a protest at the Noida city magistrate's office.

“There's sweltering heat in Uttar Pradesh which is causing difficulty to people and to make matters worse there is major power outages across the state because of which scores of people have died also. However, the state government is not taking any step towards fixing the problem,” Jadaun said.

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Earlier, a survey by LocalCircles showed that 94 per cent residents of the state have experienced power outages in the ongoing month of June. Also, 65 per cent of those surveyed in UP are facing outages three or more times on an average each day, the survey claimed.

Meanwhile, amid the rise in deaths at the Ballia district hospital, a UP health department official flagged power cuts among the factors responsible for the worsening condition of the patients before they were brought there.

Dr A K Singh, a member of the committee sent to the district to ascertain the cause of deaths, said the deaths at the hospital were primarily due to conditions related to old age and not due to any heatstroke.

"Power supply in rural pockets of the district was disrupted. Transformers were burnt out. The condition of the people worsened due to non-availability of electricity and other factors... Along with this, they took five to six hours to reach the district hospital for treatment, due to which several patients died within an hour after being admitted to the district hospital," Singh told reporters in Ballia.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)