Unscheduled rampant outage hit suburbs; residents take to streets

CHENNAI: Sleepless nights continue in Chennai and its suburbs due to unannounced power cuts during night hours. Residents took to the streets on Tuesday to protest against the power cuts during the peak summer.

Several residents in and around Vallur in north Chennai blocked the road leading to Kamarajar Port, alleging that the power supply had been interrupted in the locality since the previous night. They demanded that Tangedco take immediate measures to prevent such power cuts.

Southern suburbs such as Pallavaram, Chromepet, Tambaram, Sembakkam and surrounding areas went through a similar ordeal. “Power supply was stopped in the area at around 1 pm on Monday and resumed at 7.30 am on Tuesday. Due to the extreme heat, we could not stay inside the house and sleep at night,” a resident fumed.

He added that a proper response was not given whenever the residents tried to call the EB office. “Nowadays, power outages occur for 5 hours. The EB should inform the residents about the power cut and resumption time,” he said.

The residents allege that the EB officials avoided responding after attending a few calls. “Several families could not use water purifiers due to the power cuts. We are forced to buy bubble-top water cans to meet our needs,” he said. West Tambaram, Irumbuliyur, Mudichur, Ganapathipuram, and Market area faced power cuts from Tuesday morning at 9 am. Similarly, residents of Pattabiram, parts of Avadi’s Kamaraj Nagar, Sekkadu and Mittanamalli have been facing frequent power outages since Saturday night after a fire destroyed two power transformers at a substation. “We had a complete blackout on Saturday night and spent the night sleepless. Despite the supply being restored on Sunday morning, outages occur once in a few hours. The Tangedco should fix the issue permanently,” S Kumar, a resident, said.