Two Indirapuram localities plunge into darkness

Two major residential sectors in Indirapuram -- Niti Khand and Shakti Khand--- plunged into darkness on Tuesday night due to a major fault in the underground cabling network.

Two major residential sectors in Indirapuram -- Niti Khand and Shakti Khand--- plunged into darkness on Tuesday night due to a major fault in the underground cabling network.

Niti Khand suffered a nearly 16-hour power cut while Shakti Khand had no power for almost 11 hours on Tuesday night. (Sakib Ali/HT Photo)

Faced with one of the worst outages in the recent past, residents of the localities held a protest at the Vaishali substation, which supplies electricity to Indirapuram.

“There was no electricity since 5pm on Tuesday. The supply was restored only around 5am on Wednesday. Since residents could not sleep throughout the night, they took to the streets and went to the neighbouring substation to express their anger. There, they had a heated exchange with officials of the electricity department,” said Mohan Sangwan, a resident.

Officials from Paschimanchal Vidyut Vitaran Nigam Limited (PVVNL) said Niti Khand suffered nearly 16-hour power cut while there was no power for nearly 11 hours in Shakti Khand.

“There was a fault in the underground network, which caused power cuts in the two localities. Although it was a difficult task to locate and repair the faulty underground cable, the system was normalised by Wednesday morning. Both 33-KV substations are connected to a single bay from the Vaishali 132-KV substation and got overloaded, which damaged the cable,” said MC Sharma, superintending engineer (distribution) from PVVNL.

Helpless residents tweeted to chief minister Akhilesh Yadav, Union power minister Piyush Goel, Union home minister Rajnath Singh and UP Power Corporation Limited.

Sunaina ‏@sunainajairath tweeted, “no electricity supply in Indirapuram from 5pm 14th June, 16 hours and counting, officials have no clue no information available @CMOfficeUP (sic).”

Rajendra ‏@rajendra_tiwari also tweeted, “No power since 15 hrs in #indirapuram in #powerlessup, and they r wasting money & effort on creating #CycleTracks #NoHopeUP @yadavakhilesh (sic).”

Meanwhile, residents from other residential sectors of Indirapuram also complained of power cuts.

“There were many long outages since Tuesday. There was no power from 8am to 10am and later from 1pm to 8pm on Tuesday. Then, there was another cut from 9pm till 1am. Indirapuram faces six-eight hour power cuts every day,” said BK Pandey, manager of a highrise in Indirapuram.

“Due to the frequent power cuts, we have to rely on diesel generator sets. An average of 30 litre diesel is used for running a generator for one hour. This also adds to air pollution,” he said.

The power need of Indirapuram is fulfilled from the 132-KV substation at Vaishali. According to officials, the substation has nine bays that branch out to feed 11 33/11KV substations. Of the nine bays, two are dedicated to a commercial establishment and a residential highrise. This has led to the overburdening of the remaining seven bays.

Officials said the electricity problems of the trans-Hindon area, including Indirapuram, will be solved once the work on the 400-KV Indirapuram substation is complete. The 400-KV substation at Indirapuram was scheduled to start in April but is caught in a land issue. A plot, nearly 8.5 metre x 8.5 metre, is required on the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) campus at Indirapuram to install a power transmission pole.