Cable fault leads to Bally power cuts, adds to pain
Times of India | 19 April 2024
Kolkata: Residents of a locality near Bally police station have complained of power outages similar to the ones reported from peripheral areas of Kolkata and suburbs last summer that power utility CESC had attributed to faults in its network caused by a spike in use of unsanctioned ACs.
Former footballer Satyajit Chatterjee, who lives in the locality, said there had been power cuts on Wednesday afternoon and again late on Wednesday, which continued till the early hours of Thursday.“The first outage was between 2.15 pm and 4.15 pm on Wednesday. Then, the power cut off around 11.20 pm and returned at 1.10 am,” said Chatterjee.
There was another outage from 6 pm to 6.30 pm on Thursday. Pinaki Chattopadhyay, who lives in Australia and visits Kolkata every year but usually not in summer, said this is the worst he has seen in over a decade. “I am in Kolkata now because my mother passed away. While the weather is terrible, the discomfort has increased due to the power outages. I am told this happened last year as well. If so, the situation should have improved this year,” the Sydney-based businessman said.
Ramkrishna Chatterjee, a doctor who lives in the area, said the health of his wife, an Alzheimer’s patient requiring support, deteriorated due to the power cuts. “I hope CESC is able to resolve the situation soon,” he said.
Those who work from home have also been inconvenienced by the Wi-Fi services being affected.
CESC said the problem occurred due to a local cable fault and services had been restored after isolating the section that caused the issue. “The isolation of a fault takes around 30-40 minutes, sometimes less. Fault repair is underway but supply has been restored,” the official said.
But residents feared the fault would crop up again unless properly addressed. They said they had learnt the utility had been unable to augment a cable from Liluah to Bally due to hurdles. Though microtunnelling was proposed, there were objections from certain quarters. CESC refused to officially acknowledge the issue.