Gurugram electrocution exposes DHBVN's crumbling infrastructure

GURUGRAM: An incident on Independence Day where six children, aged between seven and 15, sustained severe burn injuries has again exposed the crumbling infrastructure of Dakshin Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam (DHBVN), Haryana's electricity board.

The mishap occurred on Tuesday afternoon after two street light poles exploded, which was caused by short circuit of high voltage wires surrounding the poles.

Of the six injured children, Anju and Kaku suffered more than 80 per cent burns and are being treated at Delhi's Safdarjung Hospital.

The remaining children are in a serious condition too, having received between 20 to 40 per cent burns, and are being treated in a private Gurugram hospital.

Lack of maintenance and poor quality of the wires – which could not bear heavy electric load – were responsible for the incident.

There have been numerous complaints from residents about repeated sparks in the wires in various areas. However, these have been unattended for a long time by DHBVN officials.

The situation worsens during monsoon, and deteriorates further in older areas of Gurugram, where low hanging naked wires with wrong connections could cause major damage.

These dense areas include Sadar Bazaar, Gurdwara road, Rajiv Nagar and Hans Enclave market.

Losses for DHBVN continue to mount each year and the situation shows no sign of improvement. It is estimated that DHBVN is suffering losses of nearly Rs 41 crore each month.

Officials of DHBVN say the main reason for the depletion is line losses in various areas of Gurugram, caused mainly due to increase incidents of power theft.

Despite charging Gurugram residents an expensive Re 8 per unit for power supply, the state-owned DHBVN continue to incur heavy losses.

In the financial year 2016-17, the board incurred a loss of Rs 500 crore in Gurugram district. In the financial year 2015-16, DHBVN incurred a loss of Rs 450 crore.

Taking cognisance of the challenges, a senior DHBVN official said that work is being carried out to improve the city's power infrastructure.