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Power cuts can affect your blood pressure if you are new to the state capital’s old ways of functioning.
Erratic power supply has become the norm of the day in Patna but what worsens the situation is the lack of information on the restoration of power.
Despite the government’s tall claims of taking steps to improve the power scenario in the state, particularly in Patna, the power authorities have not been able to put up an appropriate system in place using which consumers could get information on when the supply would be restored.
Patna Electric Supply Undertaking (Pesu) has just two phone lines — 0612-2280024 & 0612-2280014 — on which residents, who have been facing frequent power cuts, can make an inquiry.
People, who cannot get through these numbers despite repeated attempts, have to depend on the mercy of the power board, which takes its own sweet time to fix the problem. Residents are furious over the frequency of power cuts and the “indifference” of Pesu in keeping them in the dark over the restoration process.
“In big cities such as Delhi, people have the facility to dial a particular number and enquire when the power supply would be restored. Here, Pesu does not have any such facility. It has set up two phone lines for formality, which are always busy,” said R.K. Singh, a resident of Rajiv Nagar.
Another consumer, Janmejay Kumar, a resident of Kankerbagh, said: “If the state electricity board can’t provide us uninterrupted power supply in Patna, it should at least put in place an effective mechanism through which we can dial and collect information about when the supply would be restored.”
Pesu general manager-cum-chief engineer SKP Singh admitted that the present control room numbers were insufficient to cater to the needs of around 3.25 lakh consumers in Patna. “Yes there are problems and the reason is quite obvious. We have only two numbers to cater to the queries of lakhs of people.”
Singh, however, said people could get information about the restoration process by calling up the power sub-station in their area. There are altogether 45 power sub-stations in the state capital, which supply power to the residents.
“People at the sub-stations can tell the consumer about the time to be taken in restoration if the power cut is because of a shutdown, breakdown or loadshedding. But they would not be able to help if the power disruption is because of some local fault like snapping of wire or burning of transformer,” he said.
The general manager said: “We are going to start a customer care centre which would function round-the-clock and will provide information with more accuracy to the consumers. The centre would become functional in three to four months.”
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