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Powerless Bharat Nagar residents in Lucknow wake up MLA at 1 am
According to officials, due to increased humidity, the number of complaints received at the 1912 helpline number has crossed 5000 per day
Facing a power outage for nearly eight hours, Bharat Nagar residents woke up Lucknow North MLA Neeraj Bora at 1am on Sunday.
The angry crowd gathered at the MLA’s residence after allegedly failing to get a response from the Lucknow Electricity Supply Administration (LESA) substation staff, who allegedly did not bother to attend the complaint even after eight hours.
Bora immediately intervened and ordered officials to rectify the fault. Prior to this, there was a ruckus at the location substation, prompting police to intervene and disperse the crowd using force.
Both Bharat Nagar and Faizullaganj are connected to the Priyadarshini Colony substation and faced power outages of more than eight hours.
In Faizullaganj, students and residents blocked the Bandha Road after a transformer remained unchanged for 18 hours despite a mandatory repair window of six hours in urban areas.
Shushant Srivastava, a resident of Faizullaganj, said, “The power cuts have severely disrupted daily life. Many residents, including students preparing for their B.Tech exams commencing on July 23, have been unable to study or find respite from the sweltering heat.”
Sharda Tripathi, a local resident, said, “There have been persistent power cuts during the night hours.”
Over the past week, more than 125 transformers have been damaged, with LESA sources indicating that around 18 transformers fail daily.
The failure to promptly repair or replace damaged transformers has led to discontent and protests. In Alambagh and Ashiana, there have been frequent power cuts at night. On two consecutive nights in Alambagh, the Chander Nagar feeder remained closed on Friday and Saturday, causing public anger. Madhyanchal MD Bhawani Singh Khangarot reprimanded the executive engineer and other staff for their laxity in work.
An official of LESA said, “The state capital requires prompt attention to its power infrastructure. There are two workshops dedicated to transformer repairs, yet the delays and inefficiencies in addressing faults have raised serious concerns about the management and preparedness.”
Another LESA official said , “There is unprecedented power demand and transformers are overloaded. We are trying to attend every complaint at the earliest but, at some substations, the response time has been more.”
The power demand of Lucknow is between 1500 and 1600 megawatt (mw) per day.
According to officials, due to increased humidity, the number of complaints received at the 1912 helpline number has crossed 5000 per day, besides 1500 complaints are received at substations per day.
As many as 30 substations are identified as sensitive because 60% of the LESA complaints come from them.
“Local feeders with 12 to 15 face power cuts because of the absence of skilled staff like those in the past. Previously, LESA linesmen were ITI diploma holders, but now almost 80% of the linesmen are outsourced and are not as skilled as those we had in the past. Even for attending a common complaint, they get a shutdown, causing frequent power disruptions in areas, which leads to unrest among consumers. Most of the outsourced staff is not able to work on the running line,” a highly placed LESA official said.
