Under the Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP), the pollution regulatory authority has banned the use of diesel generators in Delhi and NCR region from Thursday.
However, the use of generators for emergency and essential services, such as hospitals, railway and metro stations, are excluded from the ban.
As per the pollution department in Gurugram, there are around 11,000 generators operational in the city, both in the residential and industrial sectors.
In Gurugram, there are around 67 societies and condominiums, housing at least 1.5 lakh residents, which are either partially or heavily dependent on gensets.
Though residents have been living there for several years now, these societies run entirely on gensets becasue developers in the city running entire residential towers on gensets after handing over flats to buyers because of their inability to procure the requisite occupation and completion papers. Ten of these societies run 100% on generators.
"We also have essential services such as elevators. Then there are children and senior citizens, many of senior citizens who are suffering from serious ailments. For such patients, medicines need to be stored at a certain temperature. All these things are dependent on continuous power supply,” said Raman Sharma a senior citizen in Gurugram.
“Generators are required everyday to provide power connectivity when the power supply is not there. How will basic essential services like lifts work if there is a complete ban on gensets,” said Aman Morya another resident.
"Frequent power cut will disrupt office work and will be difficult for those who work from home. The state government should provide appropriate infrastructure to deal with this problem," Vani Singh, who is a resident of new Gurugram,” said.
Industry associations based in Manesar and Udyog Vihar said the ban would impact production.
“The factories and multiple export units, which work continuously and need uninterrupted power supply, would now face lot of problems due to the issue. Covid-19 has already suffered our production this will further lead to huge losses,” said Manmohan Gaind, general secretary, Manesar Industries Welfare Association.
"The state government must think about industries problem and gen set ban will surely impact industries. We are using gen sets in the absence of power cuts. The government must resolve this problem and take necessary step for 24-hours power supply," he, added.
