Several areas of the State capital reeled under protracted spells of power outages on Friday. low voltage in several localities compounded their problems further.  Angered by the  power-cuts dragging  for  hours, residents  of  Kishannagar  took to the streets, staging demonstrations against  the  ‘nonchalant’  power department and demanding the  problems of power-cuts and low voltage  be addressed  promptly.

Things worsened further after gusty winds blew in the evening hours. Several areas of Dehradun like Rajpur Road, Raipur, Badripur and Nehru Colony plunged into darkness as power went off. 

“We keep suffering with the power going  off frequently. Voltage dipping low is another problem we are facing. The summer heat continuing, these problems are leaving us miserable,” said Ranjana Rawat, a resident of Rajpur.

Quizzed, the power officials ascribed the ongoing power crisis to scanty pre-winter and winter rainfall in the higher reaches and the consequent dip in the generation of power. Power generation in the State- run power plants has come down due to slow flow of water from the streams.  The gap spiraling between demand and supply is resulting in the State plunging into a power crisis, the power officials said.

UPCl spokesperson Madhusudan Issar said that the demand of electricity in the State on Friday was 38.04 million units whereas the availability of the electricity was 36.39 million units.

UPCl has received 6.57 MU from various State-based hydro power units, he said. To bridge the deficit, 16.76 MU power had been purchased from the Centre-run hydro power units on Friday, he said, adding that UPCl has been receiving 200 MW from Tata Power on daily basis after the tendering process was completed for April.

However, he denied that any part of the city had power-cuts on Friday. No power cut was reported from any part of the State capital on Friday, claimed UPCl official Issar, adding in the same breath that UPCl would purchase 14 MU from Indian Energy Exchanges to bridge the deficit on Saturday.