BENGALURU: This summer, sufficiency in the power situation may not bring respite from the searing heat, with power problems threatening to nag you every now and then. Technical glitches and lack of work coordination between various civic agencies are threatening to haunt Bengalureans throughout the coming summer.Although Bangalore Electricity Supply Company (BESCOM) claims that it has surplus power for the city, it is likely that the city would continue to have power outages for the next few months.
BESCOM DGM Lakshminarayan said power cuts are occurring due to local congestion, line congestion and unregulated digging works by other agencies such as Bangalore Water Supply & Sewerage Board (BWSSB), Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Limited (BMRCL) and Gas Authority India Limited (GAIL). “If a cable is damaged, power could be out in an area until we rectify it, for which we might have to dig the road, identify the cable and then proceed with rectifying the damage,” he said.According to him, BESCOM MD Rajendra Cholan has instructed that until elections are over, no permission would be given for works by any external agency.
Assistant General Manager (Load Shedding) of BESCOM, Shivashankar, attributed power outages to technical issues and feeder faults, and clarified that no load sheddings were being instructed. Director (Technical) of BESCOM, K Siddaraju, said the power cuts were caused by constraints faced by Karnataka Power Transmission Corporation Limited (KPTCL), the agency responsible for power transmission in the state. “We have told them of the issues and they have agreed to address them, which includes installing additional transformers,” he added.While this is the ground reality, BESCOM officials have also drawn a rosy picture about the power supply status, which may sound good to the ear, but for the on-ground technical glitches, they need to be addressed.
BESCOM officials have clarified that there is currently no power shortage for the city, and they have the capacity to provide uninterrupted power even during peak summer, when consumption will be the highest. On Wednesday, the state broke its previous record for consumption.
“On normal days, Karnataka consumes 214 million units, but touched 240 million units on Wednesday. We have sufficient power to supply up to 260 million units,” said KPCL Managing Director Kumar Naik.
OUTAGES IRK RESIDENTS
Despite sufficient power stock, Bengaluru residents are expected to face the heat. And it is already happening even before the summer has peaked. Residents say power cuts have started occuring on a daily basis. Residents of Anepalya had to suffer long power outages for five hours from 1 pm to 6 pm on Wednesday. On other days, there are power cuts for about an hour a day, said Mary Magdalene, a resident. Srinivas Alavilli, a resident of Hulimavu, said that power is out for about an hour in the mornings.