Every time there is a complaint of power failure, residents of areas such as Madhanangkuppam, Surapet, Padmavathy Nagar and Shanmugapuram have to wait for several hours for a remedy.
Some of the fast-developing areas under Ambattur and Madhavaram zones of the Chennai Corporation are covered by the sub-station in Kadirvedu, Puzhal.
It is not only a time constraint but also the vastness of the area that slows down maintenance work and poses challenges to officials of the Tamil Nadu Generation and Distribution Corporation (Tangedco).
Residents also complained they had to travel at least six kilometres to the Kadirvedu office for bill payment and complaint redressal. Moreover, there is a delay of nearly a week in getting new connections due to manpower shortage.
The residents of the area complain about irregular visit by assessors to note down meter readings due to the same reason.
R. Murugan, president of Madhanangkuppam Makkal Munnetra Sangam, said: “It takes a few hours for any type of complaint to be attended to as the local officials keep saying there is a shortage of staff and a large area to be covered. Several areas suffer from power outages for more than 12 hours in case of a technical snag in transformers.”
Residents demanded that some of the areas must be bifurcated and provided a new sub-station or linked to the Kallikuppam office falling under Ambattur.
A portion of the four-acre space available in Collector Nagar, Madhanangkuppam, could be used to establish a new office, they said.
A senior official of Tangedco said they had received no representation from residents regarding the bifurcation of the above areas. He pointed out that if the residents gave a petition for the bifurcation of the area, immediate steps would be taken in this regard.
Similarly, consumer activists residing in the periphery of Chennai district in areas such as Nemilichery in the west and beyond Tambaram in the south wanted Tangedco to open Fuse-Off Call centres, as these areas have already developed by leaps and bounds.
