The heat is on. So are power cuts.

This summer, the power pang is not a prolonged affair, though. They come in short spells, leaving Patnaites jittery and proving tall claims of Bihar State Electricity Board (BSEB) and Patna Electric Supply Undertaking (Pesu) on quality electricity supply hollow.

With the maximum day temperature hovering over 40°C over the past one week, the power flip-flop is giving residents patience test each day.

“The electricity comes and goes. The cycle continues almost throughout the day. The situation is more or less similar everywhere in the city. The duration of power cut is not long but it has become a nagging problem,” said Ajay Kumar Srivastava, a resident of the Boring Canal Road area, adding that the city was reeling from acute power shortage. .

The BSEB supplied 400MW of power to Patna on Friday against the city’s peak demand of 550 to 600MW in summer. But Pesu’s top officers claimed that the city was getting adequate power and attributed the problem of frequent power cuts to glitches in the local distribution system.

“We are drawing about 435 to 440MW of power every day. Power paucity cannot be held responsible for power cuts in the city. Rather, glitches in the local distribution system on account of increased load factor in summer is responsible for the power trips, ” Pesu general manager-cum-chief engineer SKP Singh told The Telegraph.

Pesu is accountable for power supply in the state capital. Carrying out pre-summer maintenance work, Pesu officials had claimed that all necessary arrangements had been made to cope up with the problems, which frequently cropped up in summer. But in reality, the scenario has not changed much. Power pangs are still part and parcel of every Patnaite’s life.

Singh said: “Power cuts are occurring because of increased load factor, which leads to frequent fuse off calls. This is happening because increased load on a particular distribution transformer (DT) in an area.”

Stating that out of 4,000 transformers in urban Patna, only 50 per cent have been equipped with air break (AB) switches, Singh said: “An AB switch disconnects a transformer from the rest of the power supply system. If a transformer is not equipped with the particular switch, then the power has to be snapped from power sub-station to repair a fuse.”

Asked why Pesu was not coming out with a particular schedule for power cut in a particular area, Singh said: “Scheduling is done when there is loadshedding. We (Pesu) are not resorting to loadshedding since 2003-04 in Patna. There is no question of having a scheduling system in place when the city is getting full load.”