Protests, polls, weather reduce power cuts in NCR

The agitations against huge power cuts in Delhi-NCR seem to have paid off on Wednesday.

The agitations against huge power cuts in Delhi-NCR seem to have paid off on Wednesday.

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Gurgaon, which has been the worst hit by the power crisis, finally got some relief - the power cuts came down from 18 hours to 10 hours.

And Ghaziabad was fortunate not to have any power cut thanks to the municipal elections on Wednesday.

Noida too, enjoyed some relief but some areas in Delhi suffered outages.

Gurgaon, which witnessed violent protests and road blockades by furious residents on Tuesday, saw some improvement in the power situation.

Against the overall 12-18-hour outages reported on Monday and Tuesday, the cuts were limited to an overall 8-10 hours and 3-5 hours in Sectors 21, 22, 23, Palam Vihar, Ardee City and Sector 52, where residents had organised massive protests and blocked traffic for several hours.

Officials of the discom Dakshin Haryana Bijli Vitaran Nigam (DHBVN) claimed to have started supplying power for 20 to 22 hours a day for domestic consumers.

"Compared to 133 lakh units we supplied on July 2, the supply to Gurgaon was 140-155 lakh unit on July 3," claimed Amit Aggarwal, DHBVN managing director.

Residents of areas such as Indirapuram, Vaishali, Vasundhara and Sahibabad in Ghaziabad, who were suffering 12-14-hour cuts and protested at power sub-stations, were relieved on Wednesday.

"After sleepless nights for the past week, we were pleasantly surprised by the almost-uninterrupted power supply," said Vaishali resident Dinesh Sharma.

The supply improved because industrial and commercial establishments were closed due to the polls. But Ghaziabad's joy will be short-lived as the 12-hour power cuts will be back from Thursday.