In an attempt that balances safety and also meets the electricity demand, Tangedco is trying to keep the ongoing northeast monsoon season free from power cuts in and around Chennai. This is in departure from earlier practice of voluntary withdrawal of power during heavy rains.
So far, barring a few accidents and electricity shutdown lasting for short durations in certain areas, the city as a whole has been exempt from power cuts, a senior official of Tangedco said. This has been possible as all local offices were directed to prune tree branches, inspect the fitness of transmission lines, check insulators (to prevent power surge) and identify low-level areas that could pose problems.
“Lightning arrester connections were checked. We asked the EEs to stock up on required materials to attend to emergencies. These steps were carried out by our staff as part of our monsoon preparatory work,” said the official.
However, the city is not without electrocution and complaints of poor response. There have been cases of fatalities due to electricity leakage inside houses. Saravanan, a resident of Neelankarai, was electrocuted when he came in contact with a live wire on a street on Friday. Last week, three cows were electrocuted on MGR Street at Sholinganallur due to snapping of overhead power line. Gopinath Nithyanandham of Sholinganallur complained about the slow response from the local officials in cutting off power supply.
Denying any slackness in responding to the distress call, a senior official said the local officials got a call at 6 a.m. Immediately, the supply to the transformer was cut. “We reached the spot by 6.20 a.m. and worked to restore power within an hour,” he said, citing a human fault as the cause for the accident at Neelankarai.
