GURUGRAM: The Haryana government’s ambitious zero-outage project to make the city ‘inverter-free’ seems to be a distant dream even five years after its launch. Residents of many areas in Gurugram — sectors 69, 70A and 71 to name a few — are still reeling from daily outages, making them heavily reliant on diesel gensets.
What has compounded their problem is that the residents have to shell out Rs 32 to Rs 35 per unit for using these diesel gensets.
The RWA of Astaire Garden in Sector 70A said that they receive a message from the discom every morning about power outages from 11am to 6pm.
“When there is no power, we are left with no option than to turn on the gensets and pay exorbitant bills,” said Jaswant Rao of the RWA.
He also pointed out that there has been no dedicated electricity connection and power is supplied from a shared 11KV feeder line from Ghata in Sector 56.
Sector 69 which is three kilometres from Sector 70A reels under a similar crisis. In the backdrop of this power crisis is the delay in the construction of a substation and shared and faulty cables of the existing line of connection.
“We were supposed to receive permanent connection from the 220 kV GIS substation in Sector 69, but it has been years and the construction is yet to be finished. Are we responsible for the issues on the part of the government department? Why should we pay the price for their delay?” Rao added.
The construction of the substation for these sectors started in 2018 but there has been continuous delay. This time, the delay has been because of the non-arrival of engineers from China.
“Parts of the substation have arrived from China. The majority of the work has been completed. Engineers must now come in and connect the pieces. The substation should be completed by December,” said Anil Yadav, superintending engineer of Haryana Vidyut Prasaran Nigam (HVPN).
In addition, the construction of an elevated flyover on Sohna has posed another challenge. “The 220 kV line by HVPN is being shifted to the monopole that is causing power issues to the residents. It will be fixed in a few days,” assured sub-divisional officer of Badshahpur, Hitesh Goyal.
