Outages in Noida after fire in transformers, cables

NOIDA: The first showers of the monsoon led to outages in several parts of Noida on Thursday, days after a PVVNL team from Meerut inspected the power infrastructure in the NCR city.
While there were local faults in some areas, transformers developed snags and cables caught fire in other localities. Residents of Sector 12, for instance, faced a 6-hour outage from 8.30am because of a local fault. In Sector 30, there were voltage fluctuations while a transformer caught fire in Sector 22. Sectors 53 and 61 reeled from three-hour outages as cables burnt following an electrical fault.
“Ours is the biggest residential sector in Noida with 15,000 residents. A local fault led to power cuts from 8.30 in the morning. The supply was restored only around 2pm after repeated calls to the officials,” said Puneet Shukla, the Evergreen RWA president in Sector 12.
Madan Sharma, the RWA president of Sector 22, said there was a blast at the local transformer around 7.30am and power supply was back only around 1pm.
In Sector 53, power went off around 10am when a cable caught fire. “There was smoke everywhere. It took some time to restore the supply,” said Anil Kumar Singh, the RWA president.
Sector 30 also faced outages from early morning, but there were voltage fluctuations from the previous night itself.
Anil Malik, junior engineer (JE) at the power department, agreed there was a problem with the 33kV transmission line, which caused the voltage fluctuations.
“There was a breakdown of the conductor in the switchyard that provides supply to the Covid Hospital in Sector 39. The major fault was communicated to the residents. The problem has now been fixed and the supply restored,” Malik said.
Manish Dablish, a resident of the sector, complained that repeated voltage fluctuations were damaging the electrical appliances at home. “If there is a fault, the system should automatically detect the same and cut the supply. In our cases, action is taken only after we call them several times,” he said.
Residents of other areas too complained about poor infrastructure.
“We have even approached the chief minister’s office about the electrical infrastructure here. As a result, a team of 8-9 members from Meerut had visited the city last week and took feedback from us. The situation on the ground, however, remains unchanged,” said NP Singh, president of the District Development Residents’ Welfare Association (DDRWA).
On June 6, the DDRWA had written to the CMO, highlighting the problems of frequent power cuts in Noida, which is notified as a ‘no cut zone’.
On June 24, the Meerut zone PVVNL chief engineer, RP Singh, visited Noida along with 8 members, including superintending engineers and other officials of the power department.
The team was directed by PVVNL managing director Arvind Mallapa Bangari to investigate the issues raised by the Noida residents and submit a report on the action taken.
Yogendra Sharma, president of the Federation of Noida Residents Welfare Association (FONRWA), said he had already raised the issue of Noida’s power problems with the local MLA and power department officials.