An employee of a shop on Frazer Road tries to turn on a generator during a power cut on Thursday. Pictures by Ashok Sinha and Ranjeet Kumar Dey

Frequent and long power cuts in the business hubs of the city have become a norm of late. Establishments along Frazer Road, Exhibition Road, Station Road and some in the Kadamkuan area have been witnessing power cut of at least six to eight hours in the daytime since Monday, reports Anand Raj

Double trouble

Pesu officials attributed the frequent power cuts to two reasons:

• Frequent rain

• Major fault in the 33KV feeder number nine of Patna Electricity Supply Unit (Pesu), feeding Bandar Bagicha power sub-station

• The sub-station supplies power to the business hubs

Fallout

• People manning the establishments are sapped by the time they return home, spending hours without ACs and fans

• Business transactions of shops on these stretches hit

Officials pass the buck

“We will make arrangements so that such a thing (long power cut) do not happen in the future”

SSP Srivastava,
general manager-cum-chief engineer, Pesu

Srivastava first denied there was a nagging power problem for past two months in the business hubs. Later, he suggested The Telegraph to contact local officials for details

“A defect in Pesu’s 33 KV feeder number nine is the root of the power pang. It is being rectified. It is a weak cable and the work to replace it with a new one

is on. We are resorting to load shedding of two-three hours because we have to supply power from the feeder number nine. The power supply is being rotated through this source only. But the problem will be sorted out permanently. The cable replacement work will take one or two days”

SK Das,
executive engineer, Dakbungalow division

Timed out

“We can’t tell you about the time when the supply will be restored. It might take 10 minutes, an hour, two hours or even more”

An attendant
of a fuse call centre at Bandar Bagicha power sub-station(A power company source said consumers have to be informed two hours in advance about power cuts of more than two hours. Major breakdown or technical snags because of nature’s fury are exceptions)

Business hit

Business activities of almost all the shops along Frazer Road have been badly affected for past three-four days because of poor power situation. I have not been able to earn a single penny since morning today (Thursday). The Nitish Kumar-led government will be ousted from power if the situation remains like this on the power front

Om Prakash Gupta,
owner of 40-year-old studio Akriti, Frazer Road

This is nothing new for the business establishments on this stretch. This area has been experiencing power cut of three to four hours everyday in the past two months or so. The situation has worsened in the past three-four days. Till 6pm, there was power supply for just one-and-a-half hours

Jauhar Faridi,
owner of a cyber café on Frazer Road

Poor power supply has a drastic impact on our business. People come here to have food in a cool and comfortable environment but ACs do not function in the absence of power supply. We can operate some small fans with the help of small generator sets in the absence of power

Brij Bhushan Singh,
manager, Gandhi’s Restaurant, Boring Road

If Pesu cannot provide power on a regular basis, its officials should at least be able to tell us when the supply would be restored

Dinesh Kumar,
businessman