Hitherto a phenomenon during only the summer months, long and unscheduled power cuts are back to upset the daily routine of many a household in the city. Various parts of the city have began to experience power cuts since from 6 a.m. in the morning, with the duration of power cuts varying across the city.
“We did not have power for a long time in the midnight on Wednesday. This was after the regular one-hour cut in the morning between 8 a.m. and 10 a.m.,” complained Sudhakar Rao, a resident from Mansurabad.
N. Ramamani from Malkajgiri complained of a prolonged blackout from about 4.30 a.m. to 7.30 a.m. on Thursday morning, while in Kothapet, the hours were between 7.30 a.m. and 9 a.m. and again between 1.30 p.m. and 3 p.m.
The Hindu Facebook page also received complaints from across the city about power cuts being imposed for over three hours on Thursday. Amoga Laxmi, a media professional from Ram Nagar, posted saying that the duration of power cuts was four hours, between 7.30 a.m. and 9 a.m. and again between 12.30 p.m. and 3 p.m.
For other areas such as Asifnagar, Bahadurpura, Karwan, and Punjagutta, the blackouts were for three hours, spread in two spells of one- and-a-half hour each.
CPDCL officials informed that they received instructions from the APTransco for implementing load reliefs of a maximum of three hours in the city. They attributed this to lack of hydel generation from Nagarjunasagar and Srisailam projects, and shortage of coal owing to the recent cyclone. There is a shortfall of 1,000 megawatts for central discom.
However, no effort has been made to inform the public about the power cuts, though the shutdowns were planned. As a consumer complains, the central discom hires auto-rickshaws to campaign about bill payment on time, but doesn’t care much to publicise about hours of power shutdown!
A Divisional Engineer from the CPDCL has confided that the hours of power cuts — one-and-a-half hour each in two spells — remain fixed across the sub-stations in the GHMC area. Whenever there is a need to bring down loads on the system, plugs are pulled for the areas which fall under that particular time slot.
