Ghaziabad residents sweat it out with no relief from power outages

The worst affected areas in Ghaziabad include the prime residential locality of Indirapuram, Vaishali which have a large number of highrises.

Residents, especially those living in the trans Hindon areas of Ghaziabad, have been severely hit by 6-8 hours of power cuts. The worst affected areas include the prime residential locality of Indirapuram, Vaishali which have a large number of highrises.

Power shortages and blackouts continue to affect residents of Ghaziabad especially the trans Hindon areas of Indirapuram and Vaishali. (HT Photo)

“There have been 6-7 hours of power cuts on a daily basis. Whenever we approach officials, they say that it is due to overloading and local faults and they cannot do much. Earlier, around 10 days back, there was severe voltage fluctuation which damaged equipment like computers, refrigerators in households in the area,” said DK Maurya, a resident of Niho-Scottish Garden, Indirapuram.

The residents of other sectors in Indirapuram have also complained of similar power outages.

“Since our areas have plotted development, we do not have big power-backup systems and rely on invertors. Due to 6-8 hours of power cuts, the invertors generally run out of backup. In that case, we have to move to rooftops and sleep there during the night,” said Mohan Sangwan from Shakti Khand, Indirapuram.

In other areas of Shalimar Garden, residents said that they had persistent 6-8 hours of outages which take place regularly. Even in city areas, residents and traders complained of frequent power-cuts during day as well as night.

“We were told that the power cuts were due to load sharing arrangements due to which the supply had to be cut for installations. This season, the outages are less and generally range from 2-3 hours. Two years back, these were severe and ranged from 6-8 hours,” said Ashok Chawla of the traders’ association at Ghaziabad.

In areas like Vijay Nagar, residents similarly complained of severe power cuts and voltage fluctuations.

“There are normally three hours of power cuts during day and night. Severe voltage fluctuation has also damaged our electricity wiring, tubelights and LED. The cuts are continuing unabated,” said Pushpanjali Chauhan, a resident of Vijay Nagar.

The officials of Paschimanchal Vidyut Vitaran Nigam Limited said that they are supplying an average of 23.5 hours of electricity to cis-Hindon (Ghaziabad city) and nearly 22 hours to trans-Hindon areas of the city.

“There were power cuts in Indirapuram and other nearby localities for the past 2-3 days as we had tried to distribute the supply lines from 132KV sub-station at Vaishali. We took shutdowns but had to revert to an old plan due to a problem. Then again we resorted to the new plan. This led to power cuts but now the situation is better,” said Arvind Rajvedi, chief engineer (distribution).

The 132KV (Vaishali) sub-station supplies electricity to entire Indirapuram, officials said.

“The outages in city areas were due to damaged equipment at the 132KV diesel power house sub-station. This damage was caused due to overloading. This has been rectified. In other areas, we also stopped the maintenance work as it needs shutdown. This was done due to the peak summer season and shutdowns caused problems for residents,” he added.