Power cuts on, discom blames age-old infra

Gurgaon: Intense heat and frequent power cuts ranging from 2-6 hours daily have been a double whammy for the residents of Sushant Lok 2 and 3 and South City I over the last few days. Though thunderstorms and mild showers brought some respite on Saturday, the mercury has been breaching 40 degrees over the past week. DHBVN, however, blames poor internal power infrastructure of the societies for the outages.
Sudakshina Laha, a resident of Sushant Lok 2, said that they have been raising the issue related to poor power infrastructure in the colony, “but no action has been taken by the authorities yet”. “Some parts of the colony have direct connection from DHBVN, while other areas have single-point connection. All the areas are facing frequent cuts. DHBVN has not maintained the distribution network, and that’s causing outages.”
She said that several highrises have come up across Sushant Lok in the past few years, but the infrastructure has remained the same. “Instead of augmenting the power infrastructure, DHBVN continues to issue new and temporary connections. The load has increased but the existing system is not equipped to handle the same.”
Neeraj David, another Sushant Lok 2 resident, said, “Frequent power cuts are giving children and the elderly sleepless nights. DHBVN needs to act on the ground and enhance the distribution network and augment the crumbling infrastructure.”
Some residents said that they should be given the option of not paying a certain portion of income tax if they are deprived of some basic necessities like power and water. “Taxes should be proportional to the basic amenities given to citizens,” said Charan Deep, another resident.
When contacted, DHBVN officials claimed that there was no problem at the supply side. “The load in these societies have increased but the developers have not upgraded the power infrastructure due to which these areas report continuous tripping,” an official said. But residents refused to buy the argument. “These outages are due to deficient infrastructure — breakdowns at transformer level or cable fault. Such poor infra, are we awaiting a complete breakdown in the coming months,” Ashwani, another resident, said.