3 min readPuneJun 2, 2010 02:28 AM IST
First published on: Jun 2, 2010 at 02:28 AM IST
As the city witnessed pre-monsoon showers accompanied by strong winds on Monday,residents faced massive power cuts till late Tuesday evening.
Many of them made frantic calls to the Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company Limited (MSEDCL) call centre only to find that the BSNL line was not functional.
The busy Gultekdi- Marketyard stretch was also disrupted by trees and hoardings that fell on roads due to strong winds.
“Every Thursday we face a power cut for the entire day as the power utility undertakes pre-monsoon maintenance works. It hardly takes one heavy shower and several areas have to face disruption in power supply,” said Vivek Velankar,president,Sajag Grahak Manch who has asked MSEDCL to list the works done on at least 12 Thursdays on their website.
At the Pune division headquarters of MSEDCL there was a flurry of activity after the showers as executive engineers and other officials of Ganeshkhind and Rasta Peth sub divisions took stock of the damage. On Monday evening linemen struggled to remove a tree that had fallen near Meera Society,Shankersheth Road. “The tree was full of red ants that stuck to the the worker’s clothes,” said S P Nagtilak,chief of MSEDCL,Pune division.
Talking of the power utility’s preparedness for the monsoon,he said,“The first two-three showers are usually accompanied with heavy gusts of wind and we can’t really do anything if trees fall or branches break the conductor wires. The disaster management team of some 200 linemen and others are appointed on a contract to restore power supply to affected areas,” said Nagtilak. Pre-monsoon maintenance works include trimming of tree branches,strengthening electricity poles and changing or repairing disc insulators,he said.
Officials at the sub divisions,who get calls from harried residents,admit that they often switch off their mobiles or put them on silent as they work through the night trying to restore power. Each sub-division of the power utility has a minimum of 44 vehicles to work during the night.
MSEDCL authorities say lack of cooperation from the civic body aggravates their problems. From April 15 the Pune Municipal Corporation stopped giving permission to dig roads. The ambitious infrastructure development project,worth Rs 230 crore,to lay underground cables in the city has also been stalled.
MSEDCL authorities said that in the event of a cable fault they have to wait for the civic body’s permission to dig the affected area. “This can happen at midnight and no official from the PMC’s electricity department is available at that hour,” said Nagtilak adding he has urged the Municipal Commissioner to set up a round-the-clock cell to deal with such problems.
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