Pune: Residents tackle sleepless nights, traffic chaos amid prolonged outage

According to MSEDCL, emergency work was carried out on war footing to prevent a larger crisis

Power was gradually restored to urban low-voltage areas by 4 AM on Monday, but rotational cuts for high-voltage and EHV clients would continue until demand is normalized and proper routing is restored

As engineers worked to restore electricity to over 52,000 low-voltage consumers and 91 high-voltage customers across Pimpri and Mulshi divisions, residents of Pune’s IT hub in Hinjewadi battled long hours of darkness, traffic snarls, and widespread panic due to an abrupt and prolonged power outage that began on Sunday.

While power supply to most domestic and commercial low-voltage consumers resumed early Monday morning, the real impact was felt the most within homes of Hinjewadi’s residents, many of whom struggled through the outage with no clear communication from officials.
Ashutosh Pandey, an IT professional working in a company in Phase 3 and residing in Phase 2, said the blackout threw his entire schedule into disarray. “It usually takes me 10-15 minutes to get home, but today it took 45 minutes due to traffic snarls caused by the outage,” he said while stuck near Tinsel Town.

“The police were managing traffic, but signals were dead. We had no power from Sunday 1 PM until almost 4 AM. And even now, the power is uncertain. Our society is relying on backup, but we’ve been told it might go again tonight”, he added.

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According to Pandey, the biggest concern among residents is the unpredictability and uncertainty. “Electricity is coming in cycles – on for three hours, off for one or two. Our admin said the situation isn’t fully under control. Freshers in our society, many of whom work late shifts, couldn’t work last night or even charge devices. It was complete darkness. We didn’t sleep, and now people are going to the office drained. If this continues, people are going to fall sick.”

Sujit Kumar Chavan, who lives in Kohinoor Tinsel County, echoed the same frustration. “There’s been no electricity for more than 30 hours in our society. We just turned off the generator after running it non-stop. Some societies got power, but we didn’t. The road is dug up, traffic’s a mess, and the urban planning here just doesn’t make sense anymore,” he said.

“New high-rises are coming up every few months, but we don’t have basic infrastructure. I had to climb six floors by foot, how are elderly residents supposed to cope?” he noted.

“We pay high maintenance and power bills every month, and still end up stuck in darkness without answers. It’s frustrating that no one is held accountable when basic services collapse,” he added.

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Santosh Thakur, another resident of Phase 3, said his society lost power around 11 AM on Sunday. Though it briefly returned, it went off again, sparking anxiety among the residents. “There was a panic. Around 100 of us gathered in the common hall just to charge our phones and laptops. I rushed to my office just to get some power. If this had happened on a weekday, I don’t know how I would’ve managed,” he emphasised.

Thakur added that while their building had some backup, residential flats did not. “We were repeatedly told by MSEDCL that power would be back in an hour or two, but there was no transparency. Only generic tweets with no timeline, no technical explanation.”

According to MSEDCL, emergency work was carried out on war footing to prevent a larger crisis. Power was gradually restored to urban low-voltage areas by 4 AM on Monday, but rotational cuts for high-voltage and EHV clients would continue until demand is normalized and proper routing is restored.

(writer is an intern with The Indian Express)

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