Patna Electricity Supply Undertaking office. Telegraph picture

Patna, June 26: The residents of the state capital always remain in the dark about the time they have to spend in darkness. Reason: the mechanism to inform the people about an impending power cut is not in place in the city, preventing a possible preparation for loadsheddings.

Ravindra Kumar Singh, an advocate, said: “The electricity board should publicise an area-wise loadshedding schedule in different newspapers so that people can be mentally prepared for the power cuts.”

General manager-cum-chief engineer of Patna Electric Supply Undertaking (Pesu) SKP Singh expressed the undertaking’s inability to come out with a scheme of an area-wise schedule of power cut, which could inform the residents of a power cut in advance.

Singh said: “There is a practical problem in implementing the schedule of loadshedding. The period of peak hour, which earlier used to be around 10pm, has now extended up to 1am.”

Singh attributed the extension of the peak hour to the changing lifestyle of the people, more use of air-conditioners and other electronic goods like microwaves and washing machines.

A senior Pesu official said about five or six years ago, people had prior information as to when power supply would be disrupted. But slowly the schedule of loadshedding was done away with because the people, including politicians, bureaucrats as well as commoners, started pleading and lobbying for uninterrupted power supply in a particular time at a particular area.

While admitting that there would be loadshedding of around one to one-and-a-half-hours every day in the state capital on a rotational basis, he said: “The loadshedding also depends on the weather. If it rains, there will be no power cut as the use of air-conditioners will go down and vice-versa.”

When asked if it was possible to come up with a schedule informing the people about a possible power cut, Singh said: “We are still following the practice of loadshedding on a rotational basis but without giving any prior information to the consumers, as we follow a non-discriminatory approach. Everybody has their preferences and no one wants to be disturbed between 9pm and 12am. This is what is making difficult for us to implement the system.”

The Pesu general manager added that the undertaking might consider implementing the old system in the near future if required.

Another top board official said: “The electricity board will not allow Pesu to notify a power cut in a particular area because it will not allow the board to charge the 10 per cent premium on electricity bill.”

On June 1, Bihar Electricity Regulatory Commission, in its tariff order for 2011-12, announced that the board could charge an additional tariff of 10 per cent as premium, provided it supplied uninterrupted power to the area.