Gurgaon at mercy of gensets, tankers; Faridabad erupts

Residents of Gurgaon are skipping work, spending day-time at multiplexes and malls and paying through their nose for extra diesel they burn to get alternate power. HT reports.

Residents of Gurgaon are skipping work, spending day-time at multiplexes and malls and paying through their nose for extra diesel they burn to get alternate power.

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Unprecedented outages for the past many days have changed the way people live in the Millennium City. And there seems to be no end to their misery in the near future with the discoms announcing that if it did not rain next week, they will be forced to divert power supply to farmers for sowing paddy Reasons for the power crisis are stated to be the snags in two major power plants in the state.

"It is for the first time in the decade-long stay in Gurgaon condominiums that we are forced to purchase water tankers at Rs 800 each. We buy about 15-20 tankers a day to fill underground water reservoirs and then pump it to the overhead tanks with the help of gensets," said MM Bhalla, a resident of upscale Hamilton Court apartments, in DLF City-IV.

People in upscale Essel Towers condominium on MG Road spent lakhs after the power transformer of the locality broke down. "We not only burnt diesel worth R6 lakh in two days but also spent another couple of lakh rupees for repairing one of the gensets that broke down for running overtime," said Rajesh Malhotra of Essel Towers association.

People in Faridabad have taken to streets over 12-hour-long power cuts. On Monday, people blocked the road on Sohna-Ballabgarh near village Pawta. A similar protest was reported from Bhadkal in protest against erratic power and water supply. "It's like living in a hell due to load shedding of 12-18 hours," said HS Meena, general secretary of resident welfare associations of neighbourhood four, Faridabad.

The overall gap in demand for electricity in Faridabad stood at 160-170 lakh units per day.