Bhubaneswar, April 21: The promise of energy minister Pranab Prakash Das to ensure uninterrupted power supply this summer has fallen flat as unscheduled power cuts torment residents here.

Regular power cuts are adding to the woes of the residents as the mercury has already breached the 40°C mark on April 11.

Rasulgarh, Nayapalli, Pa-tia, Laxmisagar and Hansapal have been witnessing unscheduled power cuts during the past four days. Till now, power cuts have not been too long, but people are worried that the situation might get worse in the coming weeks.

"A power cut for even 10 minutes is unbearable due to extreme humidity. If this is the situation in April, I am really worried about what it will be like in peak summer," said Rasulgarh resident Deepak Das.

Chief minister Naveen Patnaik himself faced an unpleasant situation on Monday at Jayadev Bhavan when power supply was disrupted for a few minutes when he was speaking at an event.

Speaking in the Assembly in March, the energy minister had ruled out the possibility of power cuts. He had argued that most of the hydroelectricity projects near major reservoirs had enough water following a normal monsoon last year. The minister had also informed the House that the state was making arrangements to get 100 megawatt of power from other states through power banking mode in the months of April, May and June to meet the requirement of the state.

"For the past few years, the state government has been claiming there have been no power cuts in summer. But in reality, most localities face unscheduled power cuts during the hottest days of the year. Last year, like in previous years, the residents of Bhubaneswar had suffered due to frequent unscheduled power cuts," said Ashutosh Sahu, who lives at Laxmisagar.

Frustrated by frequent power cuts in extreme humid conditions, Khandagiri residents had ransacked the local section office of Central Electricity Supply Utility (Cesu) in June last year. The agitators had also set a motorcycle and an autorickshaw on fire after the area witnessed a four-hour power-cut during the night.

"A number of trees were uprooted in the hailstorm that took place last Sunday. The affected trees had damaged several power supply lines. However, these power cuts are not related to shortage of power. As far as the Laxmisagar problem is concerned, it is because of overload," said a Cesu official.