Blame soaring temperature, rains, we've enough power: Bescom

Bengaluru: As the city was pounded by heavy showers on Tuesday, Bescom cut off power supply in different areas for over four hours, blaming collapse of trees and electric poles and transformer bursts for the “unscheduled power cut”.

Bescom officials claim that they carry out periodic maintenance works, but fail to explain why they had to resort to power cuts even when there is a hint of rain.

Bescom received thousands of calls from across the city, during and after the downpour.  But the officials promptly pointed to soaring summer temperatures and the rise in demand of electricity. “First of all there is no power shedding, secondly, the transformers trip because of the heat and the load is more on the transformers as consumption by industries, commercial establishments and houses are more during this time of the year,” said a senior Bescom official.

“The transformers, feeders and the stations are overloaded. The technical staff has to shift the load to other transformers/feeders or stations, and to do this, they need about 30-45 minutes which result in power outages which are unavoidable,” the officer said.

“When it is first-time rains, the already heated transformers just crack and burst when suddenly cooled by rains. These are technical issues and Bescom has already taken up preventive maintenance works along with one-time maintenance works. In areas where the maintenance works have been carried out, there is no problem. We cannot predict which areas would receive rain,” he said.

Unscheduled power cuts in South, East Bengaluru
Areas coming under eight Bescom substations reported unscheduled power cuts on Wednesday. Three substations of Koramangala division, two from Indiranagar, and one each from Shivajinagar, HSR Layout and Jayanagar divisions were affected. The power outage ranged from two hours to five hours. Kidwai Hospital, Nimhans, Byrasandra 1st cross to 10th cross, Tippu Convent, S.M. Nagar Main Road, Indira Gandhi Children Hospital, T.B. Sanatorium and T.B. Sanatorium Slum in South Jayanagar reported a five-hour outage; Kodi Chikkanahalli, Lake View Residency, Bilekahalli, Anugraha Layout, Thayappa Garden, Someshwara Layout and surrounding areas reported four-hour power cuts. BTM Layout, Ejipura, Nadughatta, Aradhana Layout, Sundari Memorial Area, Viveknagar and Rama Temple Area in South Koramangala had a three-hour power outage. J.C. Nagar, Benson Town, AECS Layout, Kundalahalli, Whitefield and surrounding areas too witnessed unscheduled power cuts of nearly three hours on Wednesday.