GREATER NOIDA: Total blackout was witnessed and forced upon Greater Noida streets on Monday evening as all the street lights remained switched off. Residents of the city had no clue what had gone wrong.
"Initially, I felt that some technical problem had resulted in a blackout in my colony. But when I went out for an evening walk I realised the entire residential block was engulfed in darkness," said Paritosh Bhati, general secretary of P3 residential welfare association.
The WhatsApp groups created by residents were soon abuzz with updates and news on the blackout. It turned out that the entire city was forced to go for an evening without any streetlight.
The matter was escalated to senior authority officials and RWA office bearers demanded restoration of services. Officials said that the workers engaged for maintenance of the streetlights work under a contractor and had been mounting pressure on authority over lingering issues.
"They had been demanding a fixed monthly stipend and wanted to be given status that is equivalent to the contractual workers employed by Greater Noida Industrial Development Authority. But since the maintenance work has been outsourced to private contractors, we cannot intervene in the matter. It is a matter of further investigation to find out how all of them came together in such large numbers," said additional chief executive officer of the authority, Deep Chandra who added that warning and show cause notices will be issued to the erring contractors.
By late Monday evening, the supply was being restored and authority deployed its own supervisors to switch on the mains of streetlights in the sectors.