Darkness engulfs Patna City. Picture by Sachin

A power cut for more than 30 hours left around 20,000 people sulking in Patna City.

The power went out around 3pm on Tuesday, plunging large parts of the city into darkness.

Sources said there was a technical glitch in the 33KV underground cable joint near Patna Sahib station. This snapped the power supply to the feeders in Patna Sahib station, Maroofganj I and II, Jhauganj and Khajekalan.

The power problem still persists because the fault, the detection of which took time, is being repaired and the supply was expected to be restored by Wednesday night.

Around 20,000 power consumers residing in areas such as City Chowk, Gurdwara (Patna Sahib), Quila Road, Maal Salami, Patna Sahib station, Maroofganj I and II, Jhauganj, Khajekalan, Chowk Shikarpur and others were left high and dry especially because of the sultry conditions that prevailed in the capital on Tuesday and Wednesday. The maximum temperature was almost 37 degrees Celsius on Wednesday.

Residents found it difficult to carry out daily chores because water supply, too, was snapped in the absence of power.

On Wednesday, however, a few pockets in Patna City were blessed with electricity. But not a single household got power for more than 10 minutes.

Shambhunath Prasad, who gets Permanent Account Number (PAN) cards made at a price, said: “My profession is based on paperwork. I need computers to carry out my job. We have been sitting idle since Tuesday because nothing can be done without the power.”

The power failure also took a toll on businesses that heavily rely on electricity. “Ice cream worth Rs 2.5 lakh melted in my factory because of the power failure,” said ice cream factory owner Sajid Ali.

Patna Electric Supply Undertaking (Pesu) general manager-cum-chief engineer, who visited the area to take stock of the situation, expressed hope that the power supply would be restored by Wednesday evening as the engineers were working hard to rectify the fault. “The fault has been detected. The work to repair the 33KV underground cable joint is going on in full swing. The power supply is expected to be restored by late Wednesday evening,” Pesu general manager-cum-chief engineer SSP Srivastava told The Telegraph.

On the other hand, prominent areas in central Patna witnessed power cuts around 2pm on Wednesday. The power went off because of a cable burst of the Pesu feeder nine.