GAME OF SEASON

SPOILERS

More than 1,000 households in the upscale Patliputra Colony and its adjoining areas spent the Saturday night and Sunday morning without power.

An outage occurred around 10.30pm on Saturday and the power supply could be restored on Sunday morning, almost after a gap of 12 hours.

"The power cut spoilt our weekend and the Sunday morning was tougher as the outage didn't allow us to store water for regular use. We had not been informed about the long power cut in advance," rued Vivekanand Park resident Anita Mishra. This locality is situated adjacent to the Patliputra Colony.

Residents of Ashiana Nagar area in west Patna had somewhat similar problems to share, as they complained of frequent tripping of power supply right from Saturday morning. "The power supply was very erratic throughout the day and by night, things turned worse as there were long power cuts. I failed to understand the reason and those manning the fuse call centre of our locality didn't come up with a specific reason," said Ajit Kumar Sinha of Ashiana Nagar.

Nitin Kumar of Anandpuri sent her daughter to neighbour's house on Sunday morning, as there was no water supply in his house because of the power cut. "It looks awkward to send one's child to the neighbour's home for morning chores but there was no way out," he said.

Confronted with the problems faced by the residents on the power supply front ever since monsoon arrived in the city, a Patna Electric Supply Undertaking (Pesu) official said the Saturday night problem was caused by a fault in Khagaul grid transformer and the work to rectify the problem started in the night.

"Thanks to the relentless efforts of the team members, power supply could be restored on Sunday morning," added the Pesu official.

Though the official had no specific reason for the problem, Pesu general manager Dilip Kumar came up with a generalised reply when asked about the frequent tripping of power supply ever since incessant rain started in Patna on Saturday morning, which continued on Sunday was well.

"During the rainy season, the tripping problem occurs because power lines snap whenever two wires come in contact with each other because of high-speed wind of some objects, which fall on the supply lines and start working like conductors after getting wet," he said, adding: "In many cases, trees near the supply lines also hit the wires leading to tripping of the supply line."?

The general manager maintained that field officials had already been directed to keep tab on such problems round-the-clock so that snags could be rectified in shortest possible time.

According to the arrangements made by Pesu, 15 to 20 gangs of technicians, each having three members, have been deputed in each of the 11 divisions under which Pesu has been divided and in addition to the gang members, the junior and the assistant engineer concerned, too, move in the field to address the problems. Pesu would also replace part of its supply wires with aerial-bunched cables, which does not get affected by rains and also considered to be a safer option.

"Out of about 3,500 circuit km of our supply lines, around 300km of wires would be replaced with AB cables. The work is already underway and around 100km of aerial bunched (AB) cables have been put in place. The remaining work would be completed in two to three months," the Pesu general manager said.

The AB cables are being laid particularly in those areas where supply lines pass near the buildings, flyovers or densely populated areas.