Power cuts: Residents receive no respite from sweltering summer

The residents of Delhi continue to face the searing heat without any respite. The administration’s apathy towards the power crisis is evident. Power outages have become a usual phenomenon and they particularly occur in areas that receive electricity from Reliance-owned BSES Yamuna Power Limited. 

After 20 days, Delhi Electricity Regulatory Authority (DERC) on Wednesday issued show-cause notices to Delhi Transco Ltd and three discoms. The authority asked them why no action should be initiated against them for massive power cuts that were reported all through June. However public opinion seems to suggest that DERC’s actions are just for sake of departmental formalities. This is because eventually power tariffs will be hiked in the last week of July. Delhiites have faced power outages since 16 January under the guise of maintenance work. Consumers have been suffering power cuts that last for three to four hours, since 30 May, when the thunderstorm occurred. The Reliance-owned discoms BSES (Yamuna and Rajdhani) on Thursday issued an outage bulletin for 20 June. Areas under BSES Yamuna that will be affected on 20 June are Seelmpur, Moujpur, Zafarabad, Khajoori Khas, Jhilmil Industrial Area, Shakar Pur, Ganesh Nagar, Sheesh Mahal, Vijay Park, Yamuna Vihar Nand Nagari, Preet Vihar, Sonia Vihar and Mayur Vihar phase-1, 2 and 3.

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Areas under BSES Rajdhani that will be affected by power cuts on 20 June are Tamur Nagar, Jamia Nagar, Batla House, Defence Colony, Ashram, Sri Niwas Puri, Pankh Road, Hari Nagar, Mayapuri, Matiala, Bindapuri and Janakpur, Dwarka and Dabari, amongst others. 

Despite being warned by the Lieutenant Governor Najeeb Jung, these discoms are conducting load shedding during night hours, when the district magistrates of the area are out of reach for the common man. 

All help lines are defunct and no one is available reply to restore electricity to the people. The Congress-led Sheila Diksht had deputed persons for proper responses to power outages in Delhi. These help lines were created in Delhi secretariat, which are 23392522 and 23392290. Now, it is next impossible to receive replies from these numbers.

BSES discoms also issued consumers help line numbers, such as 39999707 for those under BSES (Rajdhani) and 39999808 for BSES (Yamuna) consumers. Both numbers are not easily available for consumers. On Thursday, peak demand met during last 24 hours was 5533 MW. TPDDL supplied all-time record of 1628 MW, without any load-shedding.