Kohima: The Lotha Lower Range Public Organisation and Lotha Middle Range Public Organisation are fighting back against electricity hikes. They submitted a formal grievance to the Sub Divisional Officer in Sanis on September 8. Rural residents now face a jump from 210 to 260 rupees for Village Electricity Management Boards. Other categories surged from 430 to 520 rupees. The organizations argue that rural families rely on farming and irregular wages to survive.
The groups want answers. They demanded a breakdown of revenue collected over the last three financial years. Officials must now clarify if these rate hikes impact all of Nagaland or just the Lotha ranges. Leaders seek the specific math behind these figures: revenue deficits, power costs, and consumption data. They also highlighted the 75 MW Doyang Hydroelectric Project sitting in their own backyard. The state gets 12 percent of that power for free. The organizations want those benefits passed down to project-affected communities.
Infrastructure remains a wreck. Frequent power failures and staffing shortages plague the region, and residents dealt with three straight days of blackouts last week. The groups proposed a simple deal: adjust charges when the power stays off. They noted that their community remains willing to pay for reliable service. As the representation signed by John Murry and Yansatung Jami states, "People were not unwilling to pay for electricity, but were seeking reliable supply, transparent calculations and a tariff reflecting their actual capacity to pay." The groups now wait for the Department of Power to respond before taking further action.
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