Discom helpline down, outages leave residents helpless

GURUGRAM: Summer is yet to set in but residents of Sector 23 are already reeling under frequent power cuts. And to add to their misery, the DHVBN helpline number is not functional, so they can’t even register complaints with the discom.
“Power cuts have made a comeback with change in weather. In this week alone we had power cut twice already. Both times it lasted for close to four hours.If this is the situation before the onset of summer, we dread what will happen when summer is at its peak,” said Preeti Gupta, a resident.
The inability to lodge a complaint with the DHVBN authorities has added to the woes of the residents’ woes. “I repeatedly kept calling the DHVBN helpline number, but it say that the number no longer exists. I tried calling other officials as well, but they never answer the phone. We are in a helpless situation, neither we are having power supply in our area nor we are able to inform the officials about it. The authorities need to do something about this,” said Ashok Kumar, another resident.
DHVBN officials say that they are trying ascertain the problem. “There seems to be a problem in few individual households. However, since our existing infrastructure is crumbling and needs to be revamped. We are trying to identify why this problem is reoccurring in this area. We will try to rectify it at the earliest,” said an official.
“We are outsourcing the maintenance work to an agency and the complaint number needs to be changed. We will soon issue the new number,” he said.