Power dept all ears, don’t blow your fuse

By: Anamni Gupta & Sakschi Verma

In the lean months before air-conditioners are switched on, the electricity department is at work to keep power failures to minimum. The coming of summer sets the electricity office telephones ringing and the tempers flaring. Powermen will be quicker to respond, if people know where to call.

To reach the electricity department in case of power cut, the Chandigarh people have a helpline for each respective area. On separate local numbers given on the electricity department website, they can leave their complaints related to any line fault or power shutdown.

There is also a centralised number printed on the electricity bills. The city has 14 electricity offices with respective helplines for clusters of four-to-five sectors or villages each.

Line congestion

Chandigarh electric division executive engineer Rohit Kumar explained to TOI the difference between the two helplines.

He said: “Many consumers are unaware of the local helpline numbers specific to their area, even though those are mentioned on our website.

So, they call up at the centralised helpline number given on their monthly electricity bills and clog the line. It connects them to Citizen Facilitation Centre, but while waiting to lodge their complaints, the find the line busy and think that the redress will take long. While what they should do is call the local helplines.”

Segregation job

Every complaint of power failure received on the centralised helpline number is directed to the respective local redress cell, which studies the grievance and dispatches three-to-four linemen to the spot from where the complaint has come. They deal with the fault according to its nature.

After rectifying the faults, the linemen sent from the local grievance cell update the unit. The centralised cell feeds this final update into the database that the repair assignment is complete.

Linemen’s challenges

The linemen commute to the assigned spot by bicycle and scooter majorly. In case the fault is in transformers, they need a truck to carry heavier instruments. “The heavy vehicles of the office aren’t of much help to help, as these are either not in working condition or without regular drivers. We hire trucks and driver when we need them,” says lineman

Gopal Dutt Joshi

(50), who is also general secretary of the powermen union.

Even the time required to address each fault depend on its nature. “If it’s the fuse that has blown, it takes a few minutes. If it’s a cable fault, it takes an hour to four maximum. However, it can take up to 12 hours to repair a transformer,”

Dutt

says.
Where lies the fault

Executive engineer Rohit

Kumar

said a big reason for power failure during summer season is peak-hour overloading, when the demand for electricity if far greater than its supply. “In the hot season, most of the families turn on air-conditioners, which jacks up the load,” Kumar said. “Drastic weather conditions also affect the performance of the electricity equipment and lead to outage. Heat and storm also damage power installations.”The trees uprooted in heavy rainfall or thunderstorms during monsoon fall on the transmission wires and disrupt the power supply. “There’s no specific season when power failure is most likely. Whenever, the weather is adverse, the chances of tripping increase,” Kumar said. “We can’t even mark specific areas of fault. Our equipment is quite well-maintained and in working condition.” It’s never a season when these grievance redress cells of the electricity department aren’t busy. The department works 24 hours, 365 days a year, attending to complaints that pour in from one sector after another.