Peeved with long and frequent power cuts over the last few months to cable fault and transformer damage, residents of New Palam Vihar held a four-hour-long protest at the office of the sub divisional officer, Dakshin Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam (DHBVN) on Monday.
As the DHBVN officials did not come to address their grievances, the residents grew livid and locked the office from the outside for an hour. However, the office was opened after a senior official reached the spot and brokered a truce.
“The senior (DHBVN) officials assured us that the issue will be resolved by March 15. All we wanted was for the DHBVN officials to listen to our grievances and assure us of a concrete plan to put an end to frequent and long power cuts in New Palam Vihar. We unlocked the office in an hour. We didn’t want to harass the officials. We just want this issue resolved at the earliest,” Bir Singh, former panchayat chief of Chuama village, said.
The residents blamed frequent faults such as short circuit, fire and cable burst on poor infrastructure and quality of utilities installed by the discom.
Krishna Yadav, a resident, said, “We have been facing 30-40 hour power cuts at a stretch over the last six months. There have also been several incidents of transformer and cable bursts, plunging the entire area into darkness. We have been asking officials to give us the exact reason for such faults that are causing the outages and measures to rectify the problem, but they continue to be evasive. However, we made it clear today that we won’t tolerate power cuts any more and if the DHBVN does not boost distribution and supply by March, there will be more protests.”
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“Over the last three weeks, there’s a total 60 hours of power cuts in New Palam Vihar. A cable burst around 11.30pm on Tuesday resulted in a power cut for 12 hours. In another pocket of New Palam Vihar, a transformer caught fire last Saturday causing an outage lasting seven hours. I can’t believe we are experiencing so many power cuts in winter, as consumption remains low at this of the year. I shudder to think what’s in store for us in summer,” Lokesh Sharma, another resident, said.
On January 24,the residents held a similar protest against the DHBVN before a handing a memorandum to the chief engineer.
MK Bagati, a senior resident, said, “Due to frequent power fluctuations, my television was damaged three days ago. Electricity supply here is abysmally low. We are learning to live without electricity now.”
Call it a cruel irony, but the residents said the power supply turned especially bad since 2008-’09 when the DHBVN launched a bid to augment electricity infrastructure in the area as part of a project funded by the World Bank.
“We are working to resolve the problem and boost supply to New Palam Vihar at the earliest. We aware of the faults and will overhaul the infrastructure soon,” Sanjiv Chopra, chief engineer, DHBVN, said.
