BENGALURU: Over the past week, several areas in the city, falling under the southern and eastern divisions of the Bangalore Electricity Supply Company (BESCOM), have been witnessing power cuts that run into several hours, leaving residents fuming. While a lot of power cuts are scheduled, in order to carry out maintainence work, many more are unscheduled and consumers are complaining about being left in the dark as they get no response about when supply would be restored.
“The power cuts occur at all times of the day and night. On Monday, we did not have power for more than three hours in the Bellandur area. The helpline was unreachable,” complained Niraj Patel, who stays near Devarabisanahalli. In nearby Yemalur, residents have been witnessing power cuts for the past three days without any reason. “There was no electricity for more than seven hours yesterday, and today also, power has gone for more than two hours. The 1912 helpline is also not working?,” an angry user tweeted.
Near Kengeri, residents have grown used to not depending on BESCOM.
“We have been facing power cuts throughout the year on a regular basis and appeals to the BESCOM helpine to find a permanent solution fall on deaf ears. The power station staff is rude and the helpline, when reachable, is only apologetic and has no concrete information that can help us. We are lucky if power is restored within four hours,” said Shylaja, who lives in an apartment block which falls under the K1 sub-division.
The power cuts have not even spared the Central Business District with areas like Cunningham Road seeing power cuts as well. However, according to BESCOM, the unscheduled power cuts were completely random and were only due to localised faults. When asked if there were any major faults or shortage of power supply to the city, BESCOM's General Manager, Customer Relations, G Sheela said, “This is largely due to feeder faults and other local problems, which are repaired when discovered. There are no major faults affecting any of the city's major sub-stations.”
Sheela also said that scheduled power cuts are being advertised by BESCOM using various social media as well as notices being sent to newspapers.
“This information is available and should be referred to,” she said, adding that these power cuts were occurring because of various issues like emergency maintenance or infrastructure work. BESCOM Managing Director C Shikha, said that this situation is normal. “The supply of power is quite good, we are also getting solar power supply. As of now, there is no shortage. Capital expenditure (new infrastructure) works and technical faults are the reason for power cuts. We have not noticed any spike in complaints for the week though.”
However, consumers say that even information on scheduled power cuts is not easily available. “After generating hype about the centralised helpline, 1912, it has gone completely unreachable when needed the most. Even reporting a power cut has been a trying chore. We have to log on to Facebook or Twitter, tweet to them, wait for their response and explain the situation. The Mithra app that they had launched also rarely displays information on power cuts — scheduled or unscheduled,” said Abhishek KC, a resident of Kammanahalli.