1.5 crore consumers on short fuse as power supply trips

HYDERABAD: Consumers in Telangana may have received relief from frequent power cuts in the past two years but there has been no respite from supply disruptions because of transformer breakdowns, among other causes.

Nearly 1.5 crore consumers have been affected due to such problems and the Telangana Southern Power Distribution Company Limited (TSPDCL) has been flooded with as many as 10 lakh complaints in the past two years. The southern discom, which whose jurisdiction extends over Hyderabad, Ranga Reddy , Nalgonda, Mahbubnagar, Siddipet and Medak districts, received more complaints from the Old City.

In its Annual Revenue Requirement (ARR) reports, the distribution company admitted that there was a rise in number of power breakdowns in the past two years. According to officials, the breakdowns were more at the 11 KV sub-stations that supply power to consumers.While 7,768 breakdowns were reported in 2015-16, the number of breakdowns reported in the first half of 2016-2017 was 6,518.

Even in the number of consumers affected due to various distribution problems, the south zone stood on the top with 11.48 lakh affected consumers.

The problem, according to experts, is distribution companies have not been spending enough money on improvement of infrastructure for the past few years.“The discoms hike power tariff very often and also collected fuel surcharges earlier. But they did not bother to improve things by replacing old lines and transformers to reduce the burden on the existing feeders,“ M Venugopal Rao, convenor of Centre for Power Studies said.

Official sources said the discoms proposed to enhance infrastructure both in urban and rural areas under different schemes such as Ujwal Discom Assurance Yojana. “Every year, about 30,000 transformers fail due to overload especially during summer season and are replaced immediately . To reduce the burden, new transformers are being installed in the localities,“ a director of SPDCL said.

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