BENGALURU: After the downpour plunged several city areas into darkness on Monday night, frequent power cuts were reported again on Tuesday and Wednesday. Bescom officials, however, said they were due to emergency works such as clearing fallen trees, tree-trimming and transformer repairs caused by the rain.
While on Monday, the utility received over 20,764 calls on its helpline, on Tuesday, the number jumped to 33,556. On Monday, the utility registered 8,122 complaints, 7,994 of which were about power supply disruptions. On Tuesday, the total number of complaints jumped to 10,356, including 10,085 about power failures. Areas affected by the tree-trimming exercise on Wednesday include HSR Layout, Sanjaynagar, Kengeri Satellite Town, Kadugodi and RMV 2nd Stage, among others.
The erratic power supply, despite there being a substantial drop in demand for power and an adequate supply of it, has left residents fuming. Some of them reported missing meetings and deadlines due to disruptions.
“How are we supposed to work from home when power supply is so unreliable? On Wednesday, I was in the middle of an important meeting when power went off. I had to use my hotspot to rejoin the meeting,” said Chitra Prasad, a resident of HSR Layout.
Meanwhile, bogged down by erratic power supply, people have been making enquiries for generator batteries, inverters and UPS systems for computers.
“Ever since work from home started, we have been getting steady enquiries about inverters and UPS systems. But due to the lockdown, we are not in a position to supply them. We also get calls from apartments which need to change batteries in their generators,” said Girish N, a battery dealer from the city.