City sweats it out as regular power-cuts make a comeback

Kolkata: Blackouts at night returned to haunt Kolkata with several neigbourhoods in the city reporting extreme voltage fluctuations and power-cuts on Wednesday night after a brief, rain-induced respite earlier in the week.Officials of power utilities CESC and WBSEDCL have again sent out an SOS to consumers, pleading with them to rationalise the use of ACs at their homes. Else, they fear, the crisis will continue to spiral till monsoon arrives and the temperature dips. In Kolkata, around 50,000 ACs are estimated to have been installed in the past week.Kasba’s Bosepukur, Haridevpur, Behala Silpara, Beliaghata, Baguiati, Nagerbazar and Mall Road in Dum Dum, localities near airport Gate 1 and Paikpara saw power-cuts for one to three hours on Wednesday night and early on Thursday. Some areas off BT Road, including Sarsuna in the south-west and Sodepur and Kamarhati in the north, serviced by CESC, and parts of Salt Lake, where state utility WBSEDCL distributes power, suffered outage on Thursday afternoon, as residents switched on ACs in the oppressive heat.Power-cuts have made a comeback in parts of Kolkata after nearly two decades since mid-May. CESC and WBSEDCL blamed it on unprecedented addition of ACs this summer without declaring the extra load that has tripped the network time and again.In the CESC area, an estimated 2 lakh-plus ACs have been added since May but only 54,000 have applied. In the past week, around 50,000 more ACs have been installed in homes as the night-time load has gone up by 100 MW.The two electricity companies said they were comfortably meeting higher afternoon loads, that included sanctioned loads of commercial establishments. But on Thursday, the night-time crisis spilled into the afternoon as the utilities struggled to deal with the surge in demand from pockets where the network is designed for a lower load. Sports manager Chandan Bhowmick, a resident of Kasba Bosepukur, said the night-time power crisis had become regular. “We face power-cuts from 1am to 3am every day,” he said. Pratik Saha, an engineering student living in Baguiati said there had been power-cuts every day except on the weekend and earlier in the week when it had rained. “Our AC has developed a snag due to voltage fluctuation,” he said. Swapan Mallik from near East Mall Club, Dum Dum, said, “Supplies have been hit. Wednesday night was especially difficult as the humidity and the heat were unbearable. We have to now look at inverters and generators.”
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