Jaipur, Jan 24 (PTI) Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot on Sunday expressed concern over incidents of electrocution of people and vehicles catching fire after coming in touch with loosely hanging power transmission lines and asked officials to take steps to stop their recurrence.

The chief minister expressed the concern in the wake of the January 16 incident in which a bus travelling between Ajmer and Jalore had come in contact with live electricity wires and caught fire.

Six people were electrocuted in the incident while over 30 others had suffered burn injuries.

The chief minister expressed the concern during a meeting of the state Power Department and asked the chief secretary to prepare an action plan to stop recurrence of such incidents.

He also ordered convening a separate meeting of the Power Department and other relevant departments to chalk out a strategy to prevent such incidents.

In the review meeting of the Energy Department, Gehlot also said the redressal of complaints related to electricity safety should be included in the weekly review meetings chaired by district collectors and SDMs.

He said a procedure should be followed to ensure public participation in safety audits in DISCOMs.

In another meeting, the chief minister directed officials to restore the old system of payment of Gram Panchayats through banks instead of personal deposit accounts (DP) accounts of the heads of the concerned government department.

Gram Panchayat sarpanches had been opposing the new system of the transferring of funds to PD accounts by the state government.

The sarpanches had apprised the state government of the practical problems being faced by them in the transfer of funds to PD accounts instead of the bank accounts for Panchayati Raj Institutions and autonomous bodies.

“To resolve the issue, a meeting was held by the chief minister at his residence and it was decided to continue the old system of payment so that works related to PRIs and rural development are not hampered,” a release said.

Chief Secretary Niranjan Arya, Additional Chief Secretary Rohit Kumar Singh of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj institutions and Principal Secretary (Finance) Akhil Arora besides other officials too were present in the meetings.

(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)