Patna, June 21: The citizens of the state capital spend hours without power. Used to it, they hardly complain. But they are cut up with their inability to learn about the duration of the “darkness”. The Patna Electric Supply Undertaking (Pesu) does not have a system in place to inform consumers about when the supply would be restored.

Believe it or not, Pesu has just two phone lines — 0612-2280024 and 2280014 — for its over 3 lakh consumers. The situation is likely to be the same for the next six months — till its 24x7 customer care centre becomes operational.

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.

He told The Telegraph: “It’s not that these numbers do not provide any information. But there are problems and the reasons are quite obvious. These two phone lines are used for all purposes — right from collecting information from power substations to officers and consumers’ call enquiring about the reason for power failure and when it will be restored.”

Singh said: “Even we (Pesu officials) use the same numbers to communicate with the control room. But this problem will be sorted out in a few months once our Scada (supervisory control and data acquisition) system becomes fully functional.”

When pointed out that the people at the control room were not in a position to tell consumers when the supply would be restored, Singh said: “We will start a customer care centre which will function round the clock. It will provide information with more accuracy to the consumers. But it will be functional only after six months.”

The Patnaites felt the need for more helpline numbers at the Pesu control room last Sunday and Monday when incessant rain lashed the capital, disrupting power supply in the city. Several localities went powerless for five to six hours and their residents were clueless on when the electricity would be restored.

The residents were furious over the poor power supply as well as Pesu’s apathetic attitude towards its consumers.

“In big cities, especially in Delhi, people can dial a particular number and know when the supply would be restored. The operator tells you the specific time or hours required for restoring the supply. But Pesu does not have any such facility. It has completed its duty by setting up two phone lines for lakhs of consumers,” C.D. Singh, a resident of the Ashiana Road area, said.

Janmejay Kumar, a resident of Kankerbagh Colony and a marketing executive with a mobile phone manufacturing company, said: “If the electricity board cannot provide us uninterrupted power, it should at least put in place a mechanism through which we can dial and collect information about when the supply will be restored. We remain clueless on the reasons for power cuts and how long the loadsheddings would last.”

Arun Kumar, a resident of Rajiv Nagar, echoed Janmejay and Singh. “That’s the least the board can do,” he said.

The prolonged power cuts after the rain was not because of shortfall in power supply from the central sector, on which the state is heavily dependent. Rather, it was the other way round.

The state received more than 1,200MW power from the central sector on both the days. But the city could withdraw just 250MW against its average demand of 450 MW because most of the 11 KV feeders were down following the heavy rain.