On the hottest day of this year's summer so far, several residents of Patna had to spend a sleepless night.
Residents in parts of west and northwest Patna had to cope with an unannounced power cut at Sunday 9.45pm with the misery ending on Monday evening. Danapur, Gola Road, Ashiana Nagar, Raja Bazaar, Rajeev Nagar, New Patliputra and parts of Boring and Boring Canal Road were affected because of the fault.
On Sunday, the maximum temperature was 43.4 degrees Celsius, the season's hottest so far. When the power snapped on Sunday night the temperature was around 35 degrees Celsius. Throughout the night, the problem persisted with power playing truant in pockets of west and northwest Patna. The situation refused to improve even after daybreak on Monday.
Even when power returned to some households on Sunday and Monday, the quality was such that it couldn't take the load of air-conditioners, refrigerators among other heavy gadgets.
"The problem occurred after a glitch at Sampatchak-Khagaul transmission lines through which power is supplied to the Khagaul grid," said a transmission company official monitoring the repair work. The official added that technical glitch even at the Khagaul grid added to the problem.
The situation was worse for cricket buffs, who had marked Sunday on their calendars for the IPL final between Mumbai Indians and Pune Supergiant at Wankhede.
"I was enjoying the IPL final when the power snapped suddenly. I thought it was just a power cut but later we found out it was a major fault. The loadshedding spoiled the thrill of the nail-biting match because I could watch it only in bits and pieces," said Anil Sinha, a resident of Ramnagri Road in Ashiana Nagar on the west of Patna.
Raja Bazaar homemaker Ragini Sinha was livid, as it was so hot outside that she had planned to stay indoors to keep the heat at bay. But ironically she had to take occasional strolls outside as staying at home turned out to be more uncomfortable.
"The power cut added misery to the existing heat. My daughters had a sleepless night," she said.
Sourav Kumar of New Patliputra, who couldn't sleep all night, didn't know what Monday had in store.
"While I was getting ready for office I found there was no water in the tank. When inquired, my landlord said because of low voltage the pump was not working. I somehow managed water for the basic necessities so that I don't have to skip office," said Sourav, who works with a pharmaceutical firm.
A senior official at Patna Electric Supply Undertaking said: "To restore power supply amid the transmission line problem, we used an alternative line to supply electricity from Ara to the Khagaul grid. This helped us restore supply on Sunday night itself."
He clarified that against the need of 150MW for areas fed through the grid, Khagaul was getting only 120MW leading to loadsheddings. He also explained that as the power was coming from Ara, the quality was not as good as one gets from Sampatchak, leading to voltage problems.
"We are expecting complete normalcy in supply by Monday," said transmission company official.
