Suburbs in dark,city too sweats under cuts

As the residents sweated it out in the grueling heat,officials in Ghaziabad blamed a “faulty transformer” for the power cut. “It is impossible to live like this where you don’t have electricity for over 24 hours. Officials said the cuts are due to a local fault. If they know what the problem is,I wonder why they didn’t solve it on time,” an aggrieved resident of Vaishali enclave complained.

The situation mirrors itself throughout the suburban areas. While Ghaziabad may have the longest power cuts,Gurgaon residents have reported cuts that last up to 10 hours. In Noida and Greater Noida,five-hour power cuts are slowly becoming the norm.

In Gurgaon,the Haryana government’s claims to “eradicate” power woes faced by citizens have yielded nothing so far. Residents on both sides of the Expressway,be it Sushant Lok,DLF,South City or Sector 23,Palam Vihar,old Gurgaon or Udyog Vihar,all are complaining that the power cuts are not only long but also unscheduled. Gurgaon’s daily power demand is 10 million units,but DHBVN,the state-owned power distributor,is able to meet the demand only partially.

“Due to the continuing power cuts,cost of living in Gurgaon is getting higher. We have to pay extra for the generators used by apartments,” Shradha,a resident of South City,said. Industrialists are worst affected. “We hardly get 1.5 hours out of the promised eight hours of supply. Not only do we have to pay lakhs for the DG sets,but also have to pay the minimum charges,which are much higher than the actual usage,” said Col Raj Singhla (retd),president of Gurgaon Industries Association (GIA).

Meanwhile,while better off compared to the satellite town,power cuts have begun in the Capital too. With the mercury rising to unprecedented levels over the last few days,many areas in the Capital particularly in West and south Delhi reported power cuts which lasted up to 90 minutes. “We had no power for nearly two hours last night,and calling BSES call centres resulted in vague,ambiguous responses. They assured me twice that power would be restored in half an hour. Of course it wasn’t,” said Deepti Chauhan,a resident of C-block in Janakpuri.