With the onset of summer, Ggn reels under power cuts

Summers have never been a good time for Gurgaon and the case is the same even this year.

Parts of the city have been witnessing 8-10 hours and at some places for more than 24-hours of powers cuts at a stretch. It is just the beginning of summer where the temperature has reached only 41 degree Celsius and Gurgaon, an outsourcing megacity that is home to more than 1.5 million people, has already started facing an acute power crisis.

Sources have revealed that parts of the city has been facing power shortfall of around 15 per cent in the last two weeks. The situation is worsened by major technical faults at a number of power plants supplying electricity to DLF Phase I, III, and Phase V. The major power crises started in the second week of April when areas likes DLF Phase I and V were facing technical failure leading to long hours of no power supply. In some parts of DLF, this problem still continues to exist, especially in DLF Phase III-U block.

“Actually, we as residents of Gurgaon have got used to power cuts and low voltage problems in the last couple of years. Yes, there have been excessive power cuts stretching to 8-10 hours a day but they tend to get fixed the other morning,” said Sudhir Kapoor, the Secretary General of Residential Welfare Association of DLF City. Areas affected by outages are Sectors 56, 57, 45, 46, 47, 43, South City I and II, Nirvana, DLF Phases I-III, Rajendra Park, Civil Lines, Old Railway Road, Pataudi Road and Sheetla Mata Road.

Residents tired of making calls to their local electricians have started filing complaints on the page of the National Consumer Complainant Forum of the Electricity Board of Gurgaon.

Agomoni Banerjee, a resident of Sector 46, had posted a complaint on April 21 saying: “We at Sector46, Gurgaon, have been facing very long power cuts (6-9 hours) everyday and very severe voltage fluctuations. Kindly ensure that the problem is fixed soon”.

When contacted, Sanjeev Chopra, the General Manager of Dakshin Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam (DHBVN), he said: “There is no dearth in supply but we have some maintenance work going on because of which there are some technical issues which will be wrapped up soon.” Looking at the acute shortage of power, that too at the onset of summers, the residents are now really looking forward to an uninterrupted power supply that the city will get from its first power grid which will come up at Chakkarpur area of the city.