East Bengaluru hit by power outages, voltage fluctuations

Bengaluru: The residents of east Bengaluru have been facing major power disruptions in their area on both Monday and Tuesday. According to some of those living in the area, the outage was for more than 24 hours.

Though power has been restored in most of these areas, voltage fluctuations and unscheduled power cuts continue to trouble the residents. “We get these unscheduled surges of voltage and blackouts very often these days, it’s erratic. Today power was gone for about 2 hours in the morning. This affects the functioning of equipment such as lifts and water pumping motors that require three-phase power. If I call the Bescom engineers, they co-operate, but it is still difficult to keep changing phases to run the equipment, it damages them,” said Joel, resident of Benson Town.

Another resident, Dr Tara, who runs a clinic in the same area, said, “Yesterday, the power was gone for almost all night. Now also, it’s on and off. We called Bescom but they weren’t of much help. The power was gone and they weren’t able to give a reason, they told us they would  check, but never got back. The voltage fluctuation is affecting my fridge, washing machine and other appliances, not to mention clinical instruments. This has been going on for years, but it has become very bad now.”

The most affected areas were those which were connected from 220 KV Hoodi sub station, where tripping was reported due to rain. This was even though Bescom officials ensured restoration of power by early Tuesday.

“A transformer tripped and the jumper line was cut after the rain, that was why there was no power, we knew about it and now it has been restored,” said Manoj Kumar, a Bescom engineer. But many areas under the sub station had to wait till evening for restoration of power supply.

According to the Bescom engineer, many parts of East Bengaluru witnessed power outage due to various reasons, including 66 KV line constraint, power transformer constraints and KPTCL grind constraints.

“It was not a problem from our side; it was a problem with the KPTCL. If there is any complaint in any area, please inform us and we will try to fix it as soon as we can,” the engineer said.

There is no technical problem!: P Rajendra Cholan, MD, Bescom.

DC speaks to P Rajendra Cholan, MD, Bescom. Excerpts.

The helpline number for BESCOM is 1912.  Earlier, they used to provide a docket number for every complaint and also update the user with an SMS or phone call. Why is this not being done now?

The complaint is automatically registered; it is inbuilt in the software. We have to follow standard protocol. It is not manually done, but I will look into the matter.

Is this being caused due to any technical issue?

No, there is no technical issue with the software. I will review it.

So if there are no technical problems, why there are power outages in East Bangalore, especially Hoodi, for the past two days?

Maybe it is a line clearance or transmission issue. Wherever there is no power you can send me the details, because as of now, there is no technical problem that I am aware of. I will review it as soon as possible.