Patna has witnessed storms and rain in the past few days. Telegraph picture

Patna, April 20: If power crisis at sub-stations were not enough, nature also seems to have turned a deaf ear to the cries of the electricity-starved people of the state capital. While rains provided much-needed relief from the heat, it has also accounted for a dip in power supply.

Result: Residents of Patna would have to be prepared for a very bad summer on the account of pre-monsoon storms and rains in addition to the overloaded power grid sub-stations.

Since last Saturday, the people of the city have been spending about four to five hours without power.

The solution to the problem lies in laying of underground cables of transmission lines in the city, something that is quite difficult to carry out because it is expensive.

Officials of Patna Electric Supply Undertaking (Pesu), responsible for supplying electricity in the urban areas of the district, also admit that underground cabling, which ensures quality supply, is an uphill task to execute.

“At present, we have an overhead cable system which is an easy prey to the vagaries of nature — sun, storm and rain. We have to accept the climatic changes affect the reliability of power supply. Under the given circumstances, our job is to mitigate the problem through quick restoration of supply,” Pesu general manager-cum-chief engineer S.K.P. Singh told The Telegraph.

Asked what prevents the authority from laying underground cables, he said: “Since overhead cable is a cheaper mode of transmission, which can be replaced with more reliable underground cable system but it involves huge cost.”

Of Pesu’s 10 divisions, underground cables have been laid down in its new capital division which houses Vidyut Bhavan, high court, new and old secretariat, Raj Bhavan among other important places. The undertaking is also planning to extend a similar facility to other parts of the capital in future as well.

“We will be laying underground cable system across the system gradually in a phase-wise manner. We plan to cover more than 50 per cent area of the capital under the underground cabling system in three years,” the general manager said.

Asked how it would fund the scheme, Singh said the work would be carried out under centrally sponsored scheme, ‘restructured accelerated power development programme’. Under the scheme, BSEB would have to mobilise resources through loans from either Power Finance Corporation or any other financial institution.

Patna has six power grids of different capacities and 45 power sub-stations that cater to the energy requirement of the entire state capital.