Power cuts hit city residents as discoms fail to manage ops

Jaipur: Erratic power cuts have added to the woes of the scorching summer, with residents in Jaipur complaining of no prior information from the discoms for the load shedding. Residents in Tilak Nagar, Nandpuri, Bajaj Nagar, Jawahar Nagar, and Jagatpura, among others, said sudden power cuts have caused severe inconvenience, affecting their daily lives. Prerana Bhati, a resident of Nandpuri, said, "We did not get power for long hours on Sunday, causing a lot of inconvenience. There was no prior information about the cut."

In fact, the power cuts, which are repetitive, last from 10 minutes to 1 hour. Some residents in Jagatpura said they have not been getting power for about an hour every day in the past few days.

When asked, senior officials in Urja Vikas said there is no shortage of power except for evening peak hours, which are also met by purchasing from the exchanges.

"Demand and supply data for the first 18 days of May show that consumption is lower than the availability of power," said an official of Urja Vikas. He said the trips could be related to supply issues by the discoms.

While some discoms officials denied any power cuts, others said the problem could be problems in load management. "Unexpected higher consumption at the transformer level is one of the major reasons for power cuts. The power network has a certain capacity. If the demand suddenly increases, it leads to trips in the transformers," said a discom official.

One of the core responsibilities of discoms is to oversee the operation and management of the distribution system, especially before the summer season when the demand increases.