Siddharth Gadkari
At a time when homes have morphed into offices and classrooms due to the covid-19 pandemic, the residents of Bharat nagar, Jambhulwadi, Dattanagar and Gujarwadi road area of Katraj have turned irate owing to the frequent power cuts cramping their lives. They are blaming the Maharashtra State Electricity Development Corporation Limited (MSEDCL) for its lackadaisical approach as their situation is worsening despite repeated complaints. Forced to deal with physical inconvenience, water shortages and loss of business due to the outages, residents have threatened to intensify their agitation and not pay electricity bills if their problems remain unsolved. Meanwhile, MSEDCL officials are claiming that they have resolved the residents’ difficulties.
Sunil Deshmukh, a resident of Krupashrushti society, said, “For the past fortnight, we are facing irregular power supply. There are 40 bungalows and 100 families in our society. At a time when education has gone online and most people are working from home following pandemic restrictions, interrupted power supply is extremely annoying. Sometimes, there are up to three power cuts within an hour…”
Mahendra Kolhe, a resident of Blue Spring society of Jambhulwadi, said, “Our children have been unable to regularly attend online classes for the past one week. Work and classes are going awry due to the power cuts. We have to go to our relatives’ homes for our children’s online classes.”
Dhanashri Patil, a resident of Dattanagar area of Jambhulwadi, said, “My older daughter is a software engineer and has been working from home but her work gets hampered. My younger daughter is in Class 10 and faces problems with online studies. It is difficult to even get water on time in the society.”
Deepak Sargar, a resident of Gujarwadi road area of Katraj said, “Whenever we call the MSEDCL office, we get stereotypical replies that work is underway and that there is a fault in the underground cable and it will take time.”
{{/usCountry}}Deepak Sargar, a resident of Gujarwadi road area of Katraj said, “Whenever we call the MSEDCL office, we get stereotypical replies that work is underway and that there is a fault in the underground cable and it will take time.”
{{/usCountry}}Sanjay Ghodke, additional executive engineer of the Dhanakawadi sub-division of MSEDCL, said, “There was a problem of interrupted power in Dattanagar and Bharat nagar area of Katraj but it has been solved. Due to an underground cable fault, there were frequent power cuts in this area. The urban areas are expanding and the old cables cannot take the additional load. So we changed the underground cables. An underground cable fault takes more time to identify as compared to overhead cables. However, we are trying to solve the problem as early as possible.”
“Narrow lanes and unavailability of space for installation of transformers are some of the hurdles in the way of uninterrupted power supply. The Pune Municipal Corporation has given an assurance to provide space for transformers and other electricity-related utilities,” Ghodke said.