Future shock: Outages in store

Bengaluru: The maintenance work being carried out by Bescom across the city  to prepare for the coming monsoon and prevent feeder failures or transformer defaults, has left people badly inconvenienced as it is resulting in frequent power cuts.

A senior Bescom officer ,however, appeals to Bengalureans to tolerate the power interruptions which are likely only for a few days. “We have taken up the maintenance work well in advance of the monsoon as once the rains begin we  have numerous issues relating to power failure and come under immense pressure from the public to resolve them immediately, which is not always possible. So this time, we want to make sure that  maintenance is carried out and monitored well before the arrival of the monsoon,” he explained.

 As for the frequent power cuts being reported in the city, he said they were caused as power supply had to be shut off  when checking transformers, heavy power lines, feeders and sub-stations. But he claimed that the people were informed  before the work was carried out to warn them about the possible interruptions in their power supply.

But people like Ms Rupal Shah, an executive engineer with an infrastructure company, are not convinced that Bescom can achieve anything by the maintenance work it is doing. “For the past five years the monsoon has been very bad and I am not sure if this maintenance work will help in saving people from long  power cuts. No matter whether we have rain or shine, there are always power cuts. The Bescom is using stone age technology. It needs to modernise the system,” she said.