Nagpur: Residents of Sawarkar Nagar had a harrowing time on the intervening night of Wednesday and Thursday as the area went without electricity for seven hours. Power went off at about 10.45 pm and came back at around 5.30 am. Those who did not have inverters or generators in their houses had to go sleepless.
Larsen & Toubro (L&T) is the culprit in this case. A contractor employed by the company to execute Smart City work for Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) damaged a power cable near Sai Mandir on Wardha Road which led to the blackout.
Pravin Dolas, a resident of Sawarkar Nagar, said that he could not sleep for the whole night. “After a hard day’s work it is too much if you can’t rest at night. Its almost summer and it is impossible to get sleep without the ceiling fan working. The company which damaged the cable should be punished severely,” he added.
Rahul Dongarwar said that he had reached home late in the night and faced problems due to non-functional street lights. “The area becomes unsafe if the street lights are not functioning,” he told TOI.
Anil Patil said his elder son had to study with the help of emergency light due to the blackout. “The emergency light went phut at around 1 am. My son was forced to stop. This is examination time and agencies should take extra care not to damage cables. MSEDCL should also do repair work faster,” he said. Vinit Singh sent his daughter, who is appearing for SSC examination, to his brother’s place.
An MSEDCL official said the L&T contractor took his own time to inform the discom about the cable damage. “The 11 KV Sai Mandir feeder was damaged. This plunged many localities into darkness. We managed to backfeed most of them from other sources. However, area served by three to four distribution transformers, which includes Sawarkar Nagar, could not be backfed from any source,” he added.
The official claimed that MSEDCL line staffers repaired the damage as soon as possible. “If we had not carried out rectification work at night, electricity would have been restored by Thursday afternoon,” he added.
Breakdowns due to power cable damage have become frequent in the city. The culprits are NMC’s water operator OCW, which replaces old water pipelines and lays new ones, MahaMetro, L&T and telecommunication companies.
