Residents blame age-old infra as outages grip NCR

GHAZIABAD: Amid soaring temperatures and the resulting surge in power consumption, NCR is grappling with severe power outages. Parts of Ghaziabad's trans-Hindon zone were hit by nearly 12-hour outage after a transformer at a 220 KV substation near Sahibabad industrial area caught fire on Tuesday night. Intermittent outages were also reported from nearly 50 other pockets.

On Tuesday, nearly 35,000 residents of six condominiums in Greater Noida were left without power for nearly 12 hours since Sunday midnight following a transformer snag.

Er Ramanand Chauhan superintending engineer (electricity transmission circle) said on May 20, Ghaziabad's power demand touched 1,528 MW - its all-time May high. The city usually sees a surge in power demand in July and Aug because of high humidity, he said. In 2023, the city saw a peak demand of 2,180 MV on July 12.

Residents, however, blamed the city's two-decade-old power infrastructure for the frequent snags. Ramesh Verma, a resident of Vaishali's sector 5, one of the areas hit by the transformer fire, said, outages have increased from the last two days. "There is no storm or rain, but still there are outages. On Tuesday night, there was a prolonged power outage. How do they expect us to live in this condition," he said.

Jyoti Sharma, a resident of Manokamna Apartments in Vasundhara, said her family has not been able to sleep properly for the last two days. "My children are groggy and irritated. Every night when we go to our beds to sleep there is a power cut. On Tuesday night, there were power cuts every 15 minutes for nearly 3-4 hours. I guess, the conditions are better in villages," the mother of two said.

Sachin, a resident of Jaipuria Sunrise Greens in Indirapuram, said the power cut started on Tuesday around 5.30 am and was restored by 3.15 pm. "There was another outage at 11.58 pm, which was restored at 3.10 am on Wednesday. Around 6 am, there was another hour-long outage. Why are they even giving us power supply in slots? Whatever happened to the grand promises by govt on the smooth power supply this summer?" he said.

According to the discom, Rs 20 crore was sanctioned for power infrastructure overhaul and 58% of the work was complete. However, with rising temperatures and mounting power demand, cables and transformers developed frequent snags and tripped.

Chauhan said the fire broke out in the transformer near Sahibabad due to a technical fault. "It was not a massive fire and no other equipment was damaged apart from the transformer. It looked massive as several trees were engulfed in the fire. Our team restored power in an hour or so," the official said.

Girish Sharma, an electrical engineer and resident of Vasundhara, said the city's power infrastructure was rusty and dilapidated. "The wires are rusty and the transformers are under capacity, so why won't there be any power cuts?" he said.