NOIDA: Over half a dozen sectors, including 12, 28, 30, 34, 51, 52, 122 and more reported intermittent to long outages of up to six hours since early Sunday morning after light showers. While residents also complained of voltage fluctuations along with power cuts, the power department maintained that local faults of cable and insulator punctures were behind the outages.
Puneet Shukla, RWA member of Sector 12, said, “There were 25 intermittent power cuts of 15-20 minutes from 5.00am to 9.00am on Sunday. As a result, there was no water supply in the sector. Residents had to use the stored water they had while at many places they kept waiting for the supply to resume.”
While Colonel (retd) Shashi Vaid, chairman of Arun Vihar Residents Welfare Association (AVRWA) of sectors 28, 29 and 37, complained of a major breakdown from 5.00 am to 1.00 pm, the sector also faced voltage fluctuations. “There was a major breakdown immediately after it started raining. While supply was restored partially in some areas with only one phase working, there were too many fluctuations. The voltage was low in other areas. The supply was fully restored around 1.00pm. When we raised a complaint, the standard reply was that there was a fault in the transmission line,” said Vaid.
Similarly, while Parmod Verma, RWA president of Sector 30, complained of one phase cut followed by voltage fluctuations, Dharmendra Sharma, RWA general secretary Federation of RWAs in Sector 34, said there was seven hours of intermittent outages. “Power cut of 6 to 7 hours occurred on Sunday where electricity kept coming and going continuously. We had to switch off our electrical equipment like geysers, washing machines etc,” said Sharma.
Meanwhile, VN Singh, chief zonal engineer of Noida power department (PVVNL) told TOI that early morning showers led to minor faults in some parts of the city. “Small faults of insulator punctures, cable faults were reported from some parts of the city. We tried to provide supply from alternate lines, but fixing the problems took time as it was raining continuously,” Singh said, adding that currently Noida requires 600-700 Mw of power and the supply is adequate.