Short supply makes residents powerless in Noida, Gzb

Amid reports of at least 1,000MW power shortage in UP, residents of three cities in the NCR – Noida, Greater Noida and Ghaziabad – have been facing <g data-gr-id="70">6-8</g> hour of outages daily for the past one week. 

With this, the electricity department’s tall claims of ‘no-power-cut zone’ has fallen flat. Power generation shortage in the cities is likely to continue for a few more days. 

Fed-up with prolonged and frequent outages, residents have now threatened to take the matter to streets. 

The <g data-gr-id="63">discoms</g>, however, have assured of improvement of the situation once the supply from power generation plants become normal. At present, Noida needs 1,100 MW against the supply of 900MW. Power cuts in Phase I, II and III as well as Greater Noida areas – which mainly house industries – have left industrialists fuming. 

According to <g data-gr-id="64">discom</g> officials, outages are due to short supply. “We hope that power generation will become normal in 2-3 days. However, the fault is not from our end, so we cannot give any assurance,” a <g data-gr-id="65">discom</g> official said. There was no respite for residents of Noida, Greater Noida and Ghaziabad even during the weekend as they were compelled to spend sleepless nights. 

The situation was worse in Ghaziabad as residents faced over 7-8 hours of prolonged outages. In Noida, Sectors 11, 12, 19, 20, 21, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 37, 40, 47, 50, 51, 72, 119 and Arun Vihar were the worst-hit. “We somehow manage during the day, but it gets difficult at night. Power cuts of 2-3 hours during the night has disturbed our lives,” said Avinash Tiwari, a resident of Sector 71.

In Ghaziabad, power supply varies from 850 MW to 1,200 MW against the demand of 1,500 MW. Residents of Govindpuram, Vasundhara, Vaishali, Indirapuram, Raj Nagar, Sahibabad, Murad Nagar and Modi Nagar were the worst-affected. “The city is reeling under severe power crunch and the power department is totally ignorant of our problem. When we called up the electricity department, officials said it was because of emergency rostering from Lucknow,” said Manish Kumar, a resident of Sahibabad.

“We need a permanent solution to this crisis. On one hand, the power department maintains that Noida and Greater Noida are ‘zero-error zones’, but on the other, frequent power cuts, <g data-gr-id="72">specially</g> during summer, have thrown our lives out of gear,” said NP Singh, president of FONRWA.