The Hindu : Discoms drive to stop power cut

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Feb 26, 2003

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Other States - New Delhi

Discoms drive to stop power cut

By Our Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI FEB. 25. With the Cricket World Cup fever slowly peaking in the Capital, the private power distribution companies (Discoms) -- Tata Power and BSES -- have made extra efforts to ensure that there was no loadshedding during matches, particularly when India was playing.

Scared of facing the consumer's wrath in case of a power failure during a World Cup match involving India, senior Discom officials said they have requested the Delhi Transco to ensure that there was no loadshedding.

On the eve of the crucial India-England match on Wednesday, both Tata Power and BSES today attended to all the complaints of consumers. "We do not want to take any risk. It has been a comfortable situation on the power front so far,'' said a senior BSES official.

``We are 100 per cent geared up for the World Cup. All the maintenance work during a match has been stopped till the tournament is over. Whenever there is any problem we have been trying our best to restore the power connection before the start of a match,'' a Tata Power official said.

Officials said that their call centres have been receiving several queries from consumers prior to every match about the probability of power cut. "This is something interesting. We never had such a query in Mumbai,'' said a senior BSES official who was earlier posted there.

Sources in the Power Department of the Delhi Government said that this was probably for the first time that efforts were made to ensure that there was no loadshedding during a high-voltage cricket match. "Such a thing was unthinkable during the days of the erstwhile Delhi Vidyut Board,'' the official said.

The Discom officials said they have stationed separate crack teams to attend to any major or minor fault which crops up during a match. "Specific instructions have been issued to them that the team should be dispatched immediately and power should be restored at the earliest,'' officials said.

During a high-voltage match, old-timers in the Discoms said the trend was that the linesman and the engineers never responded to the complaints and went to the field only after the match was over. "Action would be taken, if a linesman or engineer is found guilty in reaching the field,'' the Tata Power official said.

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Discoms drive to stop power cut