DG set ban: Residents, industries worry over power outages

The environment pollution (prevention and control) authority’s directive to ban diesel generator (DG) sets in the national capital region (NCR) from October 15 has

The environment pollution (prevention and control) authority’s directive to ban diesel generator (DG) sets in the national capital region (NCR) from October 15 has Gurugram residents and industrials concerned -- how are they to deal with the daily power outages?

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A large number of condominiums in developing sectors in the city also don’t have regular power connections and rely on rural feeders for supply, which witness outages of four to five hours a day.

The ban is part of Epca’s graded response acton plan (Grap) to prevent pollution in the region from reaching severe levels. However, use of generators for essential services such as hospitals, railways, metro stations, water treatment plants and sewage treatment plans are allowed.

As per the pollution department, there are around 10,000 generators operational in the city, both in residential and industrial sectors. Around 6000 generators of more than 100 KWA capacity are used to augment power supply as backup for outages.

At least 68 group housing societies don’t have regular power conenction, as per discom Dakshin Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam (DHBVN) data.

Pravin Malik, president, Sare Homes residents welfare association (RWA), said that a majority of condominiums had rural area connections. “How will we run lifts, water supply, sewage treatment plant. Hundreds of residents are working from home and lack of electricity will make life even more difficult,” he said.

RWAs demanded that authorities should encash the bank guarantees submitted by developers and lay the power infrastructure and build substations.

Sourabh Kumar, another resident who lives near Dwarka Expressway, said voltage fluctuations have made work from home difficult and the ban would make it impossible. “A solution should be found to this,” he said.

Industry associations based in Udyog Vihar and Manesar said the ban would impact production, which had just normalised after the Covid-19-lockdown restrictions were eased. “The factories, which work continuously and need uninterrupted supply, would face lot of problems. Covid-19 has already hit us bad and this will further lead to losses,” said Manmohan Gaind, general secretary, Manesar Industries Welfare Association.

Ashok Kohli, president of Chamber of Industries Udyog Vihar, said that the government must promise 24-hour power supply. “What is the status of smart grid and why are there so many outages? Why would we use gensets if power supply is adequate,” he asked, adding that they already have received 20 to 25 complaints from members in this regard.

The DHBVN, when asked about residents’ lack of power connections and dependence on gensets, said that they have given conenctions to every applicant who has complied with norms.

“We will submitting these details with Epca in this regard. There were eight pending connections last year but none at present. All those who depend on gensets will have to approach the EPCA in this matter,” said Vinita Singh, chief engineer, Smart Grid, who has additional charge of superintending engineer, Delhi circle.

Singh also said that work on smart grid project is progressing and they have set up 94 feeders out of which 63 have been activated.

Bhure Lal, who heads the Epca monitoring committee said, “We have made our stand clear with electrity utilities clear in this regard. Our question is why completion certificate were issued to developers without even ensuring basic infrastructure.” He added that none of the stakeholder had approached them.