City reels from power cuts as officials grapple with damaged infrastructure

Several residential areas of the city witnessed long power cuts, up to 14 hours in some instances, since Sunday night after strong winds uprooted electricity poles and trees collapsing on electricity infrastructure

Several residential areas of the city witnessed long power cuts, up to 14 hours in some instances, since Sunday night after strong winds uprooted electricity poles and trees collapsing on electricity infrastructure.

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Officials of the Dakshin Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam (DHBVN) said that rain and thunderstorm on Sunday and Monday damaged a few distribution cables and more than 10 electric poles in the city.

PK Chauhan, the superintending engineer of DHBVN, said they were aiming to repair the damaged electric poles, transformers and cables by Tuesday night, provided there is no disruption due to further rain or thunderstorm. “We face issues when the infrastructure is damaged. Our teams work around the clock in such times and we ensure people get an uninterrupted power supply. There have been issues due to thunderstorm but teams are repairing the poles and transformers,” he said.

Power outages were mainly reported from Sushant Lok-1, South City-1, DLF Phase 3, sectors 31, 46, 56 and 57, and developing sectors. Residents alleged there was no electricity since 1am and despite repeated calls to DHBVN officials, there was no respite.

In some areas, residents complained that the power supply was not restored till Tuesday evening. The city has been witnessing spells of heavy winds since Sunday night.

On Sunday, an old tree next to the old MCG office in Civil Lines was uprooted due to the high-speed winds and slammed against the MCG building, damaging the office ceiling. As per the IMD’s forecast, a partly cloudy sky with one or two spells of rain or thundershowers may further be witnessed this week.

AK Nagpal, former president, Sushant Lok-1 RWA, said that the power infrastructure in the city was poor, and even light spells of rain often led to frequent power outages. “Power went off around 12.30am on Tuesday and was restored only around 11am. The authorities should inform residents about such long hours of power cuts. There is no communication on part of the distribution company and people, including Covid patients, are being left to suffer,” he said.

Residents also said that the power outage hampered their work routine. A resident of DLF Phase 3 said that his family members charged their phones and electronic gadgets at their friends’ place in other areas. “The invertor batteries also died out as there is no power since 1am on Monday. Senior citizens are living alone and managing on their own. It becomes very difficult to manage without electricity,” said Nitin Gaur.

In many areas, the power supply was hampered due to faults in cables, said DHBVN officials, adding that the power was restored in the first half of the day. “During rains, the number of complaints increases because of snapping of trees which disrupt supply. All efforts are being made to restore power to affected areas at the earliest,” said Chauhan.

The residents of Sector 46 complained that there was no power throughout Monday and Tuesday, barring for one hour of supply.“We suffered immensely due to the power cut that started around 1am on Monday. There was no water supply, as, without electricity, we could not even pump water,” said Rajkumar Yadav, RWA president.

Residents also complained that despite DHBVN repeatedly asserting that it was upgrading infrastructure across the city, the situation on the ground had improved very little.

Joginder Singh, former president, RWA Sushant Lok-3 said that there was a major fault in their area, which took almost 12 hours to be fixed. “There was no power all night and on Tuesday, we got very little power supply. The fall in temperature helped a bit though,” he said.

Vijay K Kapoor, a resident of South City-1, said that the area was the worst hit as there is power disruption of at least four hours every day, coupled with low voltage. “The low voltage is a chronic problem, due to which most of the gadgets don’t work and also malfunction and get damaged often,” he said.