Guideline to prevent electric shocks:

Safety best practices for schoolchildren

Shirley WIJESINGHE

The Public Utilities Commission (PUC) has introduced a guideline on safety best practices program for nearly four million school children to prevent from accidents due to electric shocks in their school hours, Commission Director General Damitha Kumarasinghe said.

A survey conducted by PUC found that more than 90 percent of schools among nearly 6,000 of 1-AB, AB and C grade are unsafe for students' lives, he added.

After becoming the economic,safety and technical regulator of the electricity industry through the enactment of Sri Lanka Electricity Act No.35 of 2009, the PUC entered the school sector to regulate certain factors specially concerned with students safety, Kumarasinghe said.

Accordingly, an awareness program on usage of electricity safely will be conducted by the PUC in collaboration with the Education Ministry to educate school heads, sectional heads, class teachers and students at the initial stage.

Meanwhile, the PUC will appoint nine power consumer consultancy members from each province aimed at safeguarding consumer rights and representing the interest of power consumers directly to the PUC.

The power consumer consultancy members were appointed by the PUC yesterday.

The PUC was established by the Act No 35 of 2002 as a multi-industry regulator to regulate certain public utilities industries in the country.

It came into operation in mid 2003 with the appointment of the first group of commissioners and its Director General. Initially the PUC Act provided for regulation of the electricity and water service industries. In March, the petroleum industries was also added to the list of industries to be regulated by the PUC.