Supply shortage leads to power woes in Jamshedpur

JAMSHEDPUR: Regular power cuts in non-command areas here have been giving the city residents a harrowing time for the past several weeks.
Long hours of power outage both in the morning and evening has been causing immense hardship to people, especially students as exams are on in many schools.
Superintending engineer of the power department Dipak Kumar said during this time of the year, Jamshedpur circle, which covers the non-Tata Steel command areas, needs 250 megawatt (MW) of power.
“But the supply is just 200MW. Hence, power cuts are occurring,” he added.
Kumar said the shortage would be overcome and things streamlined soon. “Phase-wise power outages are on in Jamshedpur, Mango, Adityapur and Ghatshila to tide over this shortage of power supply,” he added.
The executive engineer of the power department in Mango, Vishal Kumar, said though the area requires around 35MW of power at this time of the year, the supply for the past few days has been only 30MW.
“Load-sheddings are on from 5.30 am to 7.30 am and again from 5.30 pm to 7.30 am to overcome this deficit. The power supply scenario is the same in other areas of the city,” Kumar added.
“Those living in the non-command zones and its surrounding areas have been getting power supply for around 20 hours a day for the past seven days,” said Abdul Karim, a Mango resident.
Due to frequent power outages, water supply is also getting affected as pumps cannot function without electricity. Karim added that many apartments and individual houses have no other choice but to live in darkness during outages as they do not have power backups.
With elevators remaining unusable during load-shedding, the residents of highrises are facing a lot of difficulties.
While students are suffering with their evening study hours getting affected due to load-shedding, work presentations of professionals and household electrical appliances are also getting damaged.