RTI, surveys in Sushant Lok plan to check outages

Times of India: Gurgaon: Tuesday, 04 August 2020.

The lockdown has seen the revival of the Citizen Welfare Forum, an advocacy collective of residents of Sushant Lok 1, who are trying to find a lasting solution to the frequent power cuts in the area.

From seeking RTI responses to demanding a fresh survey to assess the power demand in the coming decades, the forum’s four-member sub-committee in Block B has made significant headway.

Earlier this week, the committee received a reply to their RTI query that sought to know whether DHBVN is a distribution licensee or not. “The RTI response mentions that DHBVN is a distribution licensee. This means it is their liability to maintain the infrastructure. Moreover, the discom also admits that there’s a gap in projected demand and supply. In the first week of August we have a hearing with the appellate authority where we’ll base our arguments on these responses,” said Siddharth Chauhan, a member of the sub-committee.

The residents who are leading the fight have argued that while the power pangs are perennial, being holed up at home during lockdown gave them the time to devise an action plan to resolve the issue or, at least, fix accountability. They complained that the repair and maintenance of the existing electricity infrastructure is not being undertaken by DHBVN, forcing the residents to pay out of their own pockets.

While the discom accepted that existing infrastructure is inadequate, it denies the allegations. “Power infra certainly is inadequate and every time there’s heavy wind or rain, the lines get affected. We fix it the moment we get to know. However, once smart grid installation is complete, there won’t be such problems,” said a DHBVN official.

The residents, however, have countered the claims and have contested that there are glaring lapses in the laying of cables and conductors because of which even the slightest wind leads to power outages.

DHBVN, claims that the builder, Ansal Properties and Infrastructure (API), owes over Rs 40 lakh for the required power infrastructure. API, however, refuted the charges.

“We had developed the property 30 years ago, and have paid the EDCs and IDCs were paid based on the floor-area ratio (FAR) back then. Other regulatory clearances were also obtained to get the electricity connection. From our end, we gave adequate power infrastructure based on demand projection at that time,” said Ajay Sharma of Ansal API.