MillenniumPost
Delhi

Lockdown stalls power infra projects with no respite for residents in Ggm

gurugram: After the Centre and Haryana government missed the deadline for the first phase of the Smart Grid Project in March this year, power cut woes for residents in Gurugram has only increased and with more stalling of power infrastructure projects in light of the COVID-19 induced lockdown residents are increasingly complaining of power cuts for as long as six to

eight hours.

The Smart Grid Project launched in 2017 was expected to reduce power cuts in the city. The project had faced delays and deadline postponements earlier as well, but authorities here also missed the first phase deadline which was set for March this year.

And with contractors now facing acute labour shortage after the reverse migration of workers from the cities to their villages, the work of smart grid projects here has further slowed down. Besides, in addition to power cuts, residents are now also complaining of exorbitant electricity bills, claiming they were being inflated, specifically for the months of May

and June.

While complaints of inflated power bills are also not a new phenomenon for public authorities in the city, infrastructure projects planned to address this issue have also been continuously delayed and are running behind deadlines.

Officials here had come up with a plan to install smart digital metres in over four lakh households to solve the issue of inflated power bills. However, with delays caused due to the lockdown, only 70,000 have been installed until June this year.

Not developing proper infrastructure for monitoring and surveillance has ensured that power thefts and line losses continue to be high in Gurugram.

According to official data, 17 percent of power theft cases are reported from Gurugram. The only silver lining, however, has been that earlier it used to account for more than 20 per cent.

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