Long power cuts, fluctuation hit life, work in govt offices in Gurugram

Palam Vihar residents are worst affected. The residents said they hardly availed electricity for 15 hours in the past 72 hours since Saturday, and fluctuation and tripping still continued.

Many areas in the city have been reeling under massive power fluctuation and outages for the past four days, affecting not only routine works of residents but also damaging electrical appliances.

Residents of Palam Vihar protested against DHBVN by blocking traffic at Chauma railway crossing on Wednesday evening.(Sourced)

Palam Vihar residents are worst affected. The residents said they hardly availed electricity for 15 hours in the past 72 hours since Saturday, and fluctuation and tripping still continued.

According to the Dakshin Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam (DHBVN), the power distribution company, the city on Tuesday witnessed the maximum consumption of power — 1,750MW — this season so far. Discom officials said the situation will improve by Thursday evening.

The residents of Palam Vihar also staged a protest against DHBVN and district administration by blocking traffic at Chauma railway crossing near DPSG school around 7.30pm on Wednesday, demanding redressal of prolonged power cut problems in the area.

Anil Yadav, a resident of C block, said, “My inverter got damaged on Tuesday. The air conditioner is not working due to fluctuation in voltage. We never witnessed such pathetic electricity supply in the past 16 years. Palam Vihar got 12 new transformers a month ago only and still we are facing problem.”

The other areas facing power cuts for more than six hours a day included Sushant Lok 1, 2 and 3, Patel Nagar, Sector 15, and Sector 57.

“I am not keeping well for the past two weeks. We hardly have been getting electricity for five hours daily for last couple of days. We fail to understand the reason of massive power cuts and fluctuation. The DHBVN must address the problem,” said Harish Narang, a resident of Sushant Lok 2, Sector 56.

The residents of Sector 57 said the electricity went off at 7am on Wednesday for five hours when temperature was soaring and giving restlessness. “We called up from junior engineer to superintending engineer of DHBVN asking for their help to fix the problem. We had no light on Saturday and Sunday nights, and entire day on Tuesday as well,” said Tejender Sehrawat, a Sector 57 resident.

Work even suffered at government offices. Visitors at the office of district registrar (firms and societies) in IDC (industrial development colony) Sector 14 began shouting slogans against the DHBVN at 11.30am on Wednesday after they were told that the office had been reeling under massive power fluctuation for past three to four days affecting day-to-day work.

Satptal Thakran, a resident of Mayfield Garden, said, “When we reached the district registrar office of firms and society at 11am, we saw 25 to 30 people already waiting. We were told that office work badly suffered because of massive power fluctuations since Monday – many of the computers were switched off. We shouted slogans for 15 minutes when officials requested us not to do that.”

An official at the district registrar office said on condition of anonymity that the work got badly affected due to power fluctuation and outage.

The registrar office had to return many visitors without addressing their grievances, the officials said.

Similarly, water supply from boosting station at Sector 16 was affected on Monday evening because of six-hour-long power cut. Besides, the office of Gurugram Metropolitan Development Authority (GMDA) also underwent problem of massive power fluctuation on Wednesday.

The DHBVN, however, said that it has adequate electricity to provide to its 4.5 lakh consumers but overconsumption is causing such problems.

Sanjiv Chopra, chief engineer, DHBVN, said, “Unequal balancing of electricity phases is main reason of voltage fluctuation, which is purely technical. We will create awareness among domestic users in this regard. Secondly, people need to disclose their load sanctioned by the department initially and accordingly they should apply for upgrading it for smooth supply. Last couple of days, the city has reported maximum consumption of electricity due to high temperature. We have been trying our best to redress complaints to the best of our ability.”