Sleepless nights due to 12-hour power cuts

Hyderabad: Due to the storms, more than half of the city witnessed night-long blackouts on Monday as over 60 feeders broke down, and there were over 200 trips.

In several areas, the problems with feeders and transformers were due to tree branches falling on them.

Interestingly, this was despite the APCPDCL (now Southern Telangana distribution company) having completed its monsoon preparedness activities last month.

Residents from several areas in the city said that the officials did not respond to their calls throughout the night and power was restored only partially by as late as 10 am on Tuesday morning. Areas like Charminar, Chilkalguda, Begumpet, Uppal, Marredpally, Kothapet, Seethaphalmandi to Ameenpur, Gachibowli and Dilsukhnagar were severely affected by the 10 to 12-hour cuts.

Officials, meanwhile, said that the major problem was with operations as repairing the trips and breakdowns was difficult at night. Out of the 210 feeders in the South Circle covering Begum Bazaar and Charminar division, 24 feeders broke down while in the Central Circle, nine out of 71 feeders broke down.

In the North Circle, most of the IT corridor lay in darkness after around 30 feeder and sub-station breakdowns were recorded. Citizens found it difficult to get through the emergency numbers and in many areas complaints could be lodged only during the morning hours.

Though the discom had wrapped up its monsoon preparedness activity of cutting tree branches, checking and repair works only last month, it took more than 10 to 12 hours to restore partial supply with the back-up feeders.

“The entire city has back-up feeder connectivity. This means a huge load on the alternate feeder during an emergency. And, due to such large-scale breakdowns, areas which were providing backups to other areas also tripped. It’s not about preparedness. As it was midnight, restoring supply took a lot of time,” explained a senior official.