Haridwar reels under power outages as mercury soars

As the mercury keeps soaring power supply is turning erratic, compounding the summer woes of the people living in the city and its neighbourhood. The suffering people are accusing the power department of doing nothing to give them relief from the power outages which afflict them during the summer every year. They say they are bracing up for the still worse days when the summer would turn more scorching and the duration of power cuts would rise correspondingly. Notably, with the summer just in its beginning, the power corporation has made it a rule to impose power cut for three to four hours a day. “We are thinking what is in store for us when the heat turns searing and correspondingly we would have no power for hours together,” said Swati, a homemaker from the city.

As the mercury soars, the demand for power supply also increases proportionately. It is estimated that during the peak summer, the demand rises by over four million units for a day. According to the five divisional offices of the power corporation, the demand of electricity soars up to 2700 million units per annum while the supply of electricity remains in the neighbourhood of 2680 million units. Besides, maintenance works at the power generation units not being rightly done add to the woes of the people. Despite the officials having assured of completion of all maintenance works by March, things are still incomplete at some places in the district.

On Tuesday, power supply snapped in Ramnagar Roorkee as the maintenance work was on at house station No 6. Power supply remained disrupted for over two hours at a stretch.

A resident of Shivalik Nagar Colony Manish Jain expressed his anguish over the erratic power supply, saying that  it has become a routine for power cuts continuing for four hours daily. “The summer has just started. I shudder to think what the situation would be when the summer peaks,” he said.

Speaking to The Pioneer, executive engineer Power Corporation Anup Saini said, “The generation of power is no problem. We generate enough power to meet the quantum of demand. However, there is a problem in distribution of power. The corporation is running in losses. We have the generation capacity of 2740 million units. However, presently 2680 million units are being generated. The tender process is on for setting up more units and from May, we would hopefully go to our full capacity.”