The Patna Electric Supply Undertaking (Pesu), which undertakes power supply work in Patna and some peripheral areas, has set an April 15 deadline for completion of all undergoing maintenance work to ensure hassle-free power supply during peak summer months.

In addition to the overhaul, Pesu has put in place additional feeders in areas like Dakbungalow, Gandhi Maidan, Danapur and Patna City so that power does not trip when peak demand increases during summer months in areas served by these feeders.

"With additional feeders in place we can assure the residents that load-shedding would not take place during peak demand period," Pesu general manager Dilip Kumar told The Telegraph.

Around five lakh power consumers, catered by Pesu, are dependent on power supply from nine grids located at Khagaul, Digha, Jakkanpur, Mithapur, Karbigahiya, Gaighat, Katra, Fatuha and Gaurichak.

Power from these grids is supplied to 51 power-substations, which, in turn, are connected to feeders that supply transformers before power ultimately reaches the consumers.

There are 6,000 transformers and their capacity too has been augmented to meet the power demand.

"At present our distribution system is capable of taking a load of around 1,150MW of power in Patna whereas the peak summer demand of Pesu customers is not likely to cross 560 MW. Hence, chances of tripping of distribution lines due to overload are minimal," said a senior Pesu official.

He said reconductoring of some old distribution lines during preparations for Prakash Utsav earlier this year was also going to benefit consumers.

Tripping was a common thing earlier when conductors had become old.

"Most of the over 6,000km-long conductors, used as supply lines to consumers, have been replaced now. And around a 1,000km of these lines have aerial bunch cables (ABC) which would ensure quality power supply this summer," the official said.

A recent task completed by the Bihar State Power Transmission Company is also going to help the Patna consumers.

The transmission company augmented the 132KVA Digha grid capacity two days back. This grid will allow supply of up to 300MW of power to west Patna and parts of central and south Patna that are densely populated.

"Earlier, this grid was capable of supplying around 200MW of power whereas peak demand in the areas fed by it used to go up to 250MW during summer months, leading to glitches. Now the problem would not be there," said a distribution company official.

Though officials sounded confident about uninterrupted power supply this summer, resident remained sceptical.

"There has hardly been a year when such claims have not been made by the power officials, just ahead of summer," said Ashish Kumar, who runs a garment shop in Dakbungalow area. "But power cuts do take place. If there is no power cut this year, it would really be of great help to residents here. Otherwise, we end up spending money on making alternative arrangements, like spending on generators or inverters to overcome the problems caused by power cuts."