JOIN USNoida is reeling under long and intermittent power outages daily. Even post the punishing summer season, and intermittent patches of rain, there is no respite.
Residents – young and old, schools, hospitals and most importantly, factories are suffering the ill-effects. Authorities say that aging power infrastructure and scarce rains are to be blamed.Power outages are not a new problem in this industrial city. This year, it seems to have become worse.
NP Singh, President, Federation of Noida Residents Welfare Association (FONRWA), says, “Three-four hours of power cuts is a daily occurrence. Sometimes, power goes off for a few minutes ten times in a day. The inverters don’t work beyond a point and then you have to sweat it out. We have to pay the full month’s bill but make do with a few hours of electricity.”
“Housewives suffer the worst as they are at home. It becomes difficult to sleep at night in this muggy weather and we have to use the terrace. Elders are falling ill and thefts have increased because of power outages.”
Schools and hospitals are bearing the brunt too. Anil Mishra, President, RWA, Sector 46, says, “Noida has many good schools but children can’t do without fans in this season. In AC schools it is a bigger problem.”
Dr. Vijay Singh Chauhan, owner of Prakash hospital in Sector 33, says, “A hospital employs countless heavy-load medical appliances. They have to be kept running during power cuts. We have bought countless gensets for this purpose but they are obviously not good for the health of patients. They create noise and pollution. Besides, with frequent power cuts, these expensive appliances are heavily damaged.”
The Noida Entrepreneurs Association, a body of Noida industrialists recently wrote to the CM Akhilesh Yadav on the problems they are facing. Its president Vipin Malhan says,
“Small entrepreneurs have been bearing losses to the tune of lakhs as labourers have to be paid whether work gets done or not. They are not meeting their targets and orders are getting cancelled.
We have threatened to move to the more-industry friendly Gujarat if the state government doesn’t do anything about it.”CLGupta, Superintending Engineer, Noida Discom says, “It was a problem of demand and supply and so, the outages were more in summer but now the situation is better. We are also trying to upgrade the infrastructure.”