Prolonged power cuts added to the misery of a muggy May day in thousands of south Calcutta homes.

Regent Park, Golf Green, Golf Garden, Jadavpur, Tollygunge and the adjoining areas woke up to woeful Wednesday, with no power for long hours. In some pockets, the situation worsened during the day.

The affected areas went without electricity for about seven hours, starting from 7.15 am, after a 6 KV underground CESC feeder line developed a fault and tripped near Jadavpur. As a result, Jadavpur, Raja SC Mullick Road, Bikramgarh, Dhakuria, Bijoygarh and Golf Green went without power.

CESC officials said engineers reached the spot soon after the problem arose but supply could not be restored before 2.15 pm. The prolonged power failure led to severe water scarcity, especially in the multi-storeyed buildings.

According to Ranu Ghosh of Uday Shankar Sarani, near Golf Club Road: ?Not only was the heat unbearable, there was no water in the building because the pumps were inoperative.?

In Dhakuria and surrounding areas, taps went dry since morning and emergency steps had to be taken.

The Wednesday power trip comes on the heels of long hours of power cuts that south Calcutta has been suffering sporadically. ?This is the first summer in many years that we have experienced such erratic power supply. There is now a renewed need for inverters and generators,? said Arpan Roy, a resident of Jadavpur.

Wednesday?s power cut not only affected households in and around Jadavpur, it also hit small businesses all over the area. Small stationary shops and departmental stores, petrol pumps and phone booths were all made to suffer.

?Summer afternoons are, anyway, bad for business. And then if there is no power, it becomes impossible to cope with the situation and conduct business,? complained a shopkeeper of Dhakuria.

Water scarcity was also reported from east Calcutta and the Garden Reach area, where households that get water from Calcutta Municipal Corporation (CMC) deep tubewells suffered. ?The civic authorities had to despatch water tankers to at least 20 spots,? said an executive engineer in the CMC water supply department.