With summer peaking, the city has been given temporary relief from power shutdowns that are undertaken for maintenance purposes.
Power managers of the Tamil Nadu Generation and Distribution Corporation (Tangedco) have decided to do away with the mandatory shutdowns in Chennai to give some relief to residents grappling with the searing summer.
Confirming the freezing of scheduled power cuts until the first week of June, a senior Tangedco official said the measure was taken to help residents and children spend summer holidays in peace. However, power shutdowns would be taken up if the situation warrants, the official added. Scheduled shutdowns throughout the year have helped in major parts of the city not facing any unscheduled power cuts. Though power disruptions are being reported in certain parts of the city and its suburbs, maintenance staff have been able to restore the disruptions within 30 minutes or an hour, Tangedco officials said.
Officials said majority of the power disruptions were man-made, and most were because of the multiple infrastructure projects being carried out by various utilities, including the digging of roads by private cable operators, stormwater drain construction and Metrowater maintenance work. The digging of roads by private communication operators, that too during the night, was the major cause for power disruptions, they added. Despite the availability of trenchless technology, these companies dug up at junctions, leaving the cable damaged, Tangedco officials said. A senior official said infrastructure development works under the Smart City project, carried out in T.Nagar, had punctured the power cables.
Residents protest
P. Viswanathan, a resident welfare activist, complained that the power was cut twice or thrice a day in Chitlapakkam, but resumed within 15 to 20 minutes. Residents in Royapettah and some localities in Sriperumbudur reportedly took out protests due to power disruptions on Thursday night.
While the power demand in the city has been static at 3,000 mega watt (MW), maintenance staff in some areas are forced to shutdown electricity when power demand suddenly shoots up. “This strategy is used to give changeover of power lines and help prevent the overloading of one particular power line. But mostly, the power disruptions will be only be between 10 to 30 minutes long in such cases,” an official said.