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Mohali: Nayagaon residents feel the heat amid frequent power outages
Residents of Nayagaon in Mohali are feeling the heat due to frequent power outages owing to ageing infrastructure and lack of planning by the Punjab State Power Corporation Limited (PSPCL)
Nayagaon residents are feeling the heat due to frequent power cuts owing to ageing infrastructure and lack of planning by the Punjab State Power Corporation Limited (PSPCL).
PSPCL is setting up a new 66Kv feeder for some villages, which is also a cause for power outages. Overloaded transformers and transmission lines have further aggravated the situation as the corporation failed to plan and forecast the load for the summers.
Manjeet Singh, president of the Shivalik Vihar Residents’ Welfare Association, said, “There are unscheduled power cuts twice a day due to poor infrastructure. Loose wires are commonplace and despite registering complaints with PSPCL, nothing has been done so far.”
Babita Pathak, a resident of Gobind Nagar, said, “We live in a rented accommodation and the power charges are even more than the rent. Despite that, there have been frequent power cuts for the last one week . Due to power supply, there is also a water shortage.”
Sub-divisional engineer (SDE) Sandeep Kumar said the scheduled power cuts are due to the setting of the new feeder. Regarding the unscheduled cuts, he said, “Due to increased power load, there are outages sometimes and we have only two officials to handle Nayagaon and Kansal. Even on April 25, there is a scheduled power cut from 9 am to 3 pm.”
PS Virdi, member, Punjab State Electricity Regulatory Commission, said that despite repeated reminders, the officials have made no plan to upgrade the infrastructure. “They should have changed the cables and increased the capacity of transformers, but haven’t done it for the past several years,” he said.
