Citizens blow their fuse over Hescom inertia

Citizens blow their fuse over Hescom inertia
MANU AIYAPPA - TIMES NEWS NETWORK

27 Dec, 2006 2351hrs IST

HUBLI: The year 2006 has not been a happy one for residents of Hubli-Dharwad who experienced one of the worst-ever power crisis.

Unending power cuts, some scheduled and most of them unscheduled, low voltage and frequent fluctuations were common phenomenon during the year — be it winter, summer or the rainy season.

Not only were the residential areas affected by the power cuts, but also commercial and industrial activity. The worst sufferers were the small-scale industries and retail businessmen, especially those storing and selling frozen foods and poultry products.

Students were also literally forced to 'burn the midnight oil'throughout the year due to frequent power failures. Water supply and hospital services were also affected due to this.

The most common reason the authorities attributed for the continual power cuts was short supply of electricity in comparison to the growing demand, especially during the summers.

The daily demand for Hescom circle from its primary source, the Kali hydroelectric project in Uttara Kannada district, had reportedly shot up to 17 lakh units per day while the available supply had been hovering around 12-13 lakh units per day.

This frequently resulted in faults at the power distribution network lasting for hours on end. Even the ambitious Rs 50 crore underground cable project, aimed in providing uninterrupted power supply, proved useless in this case.

Though the project did away with most of the overhead wiring in the 58 km of Hubli city limits, it did not provide any kind of solace for residents from power cuts.

The commissioning of the project also ran into rough weather within days of its inauguration due to various bottlenecks including congestion in Hubli city.

The residents'common grouse against Hescom's was its poor public relation as the Hescom authorities hardly bothered to inform the consumers about the causes of unscheduled power cuts as they did in case of scheduled cuts.

They were largely critical against those manning the complaint centres, as the personnel handling such centers are ignorant about the reasons for the cuts or when the supply would be restored.

The year 2007 would be a real challenge for Hescom on two issues — they need to strengthen their ambitious underground cable project to ensure uninterrupted power supply and improve their public relation and services.

The only silver lining during the year was Hescom's his relentless raids to check power theft. Over 100 cases of power theft in various forms were detected during these raids which generated crores of rupees in income to Hescom besides cutting down on pilferage.