Even on a special day like Raksha Bandhan that celebrates the bond of love between brothers and sisters, the people of Dehradun were not spared long spells of power cuts. In several localities, the spell ran into hours on end, marring the joyous spirit of the festive occasion.
“This is really sad. The authority does not care about our sentiments. They must ensure that at least on such days there is uninterrupted power supply. But we know that such appeals would fall on deaf ears and the power department would claim that there is no power-cut,” said Nitu, a resident of Shiv lok Colony of the city.
Echoing the same emotion, another of Salawala said that the same had happened on Independence Day this year. “The electricity employees chose this day for changing wires. We reeled under power outages almost the whole day. This is a sad commentary on how things are being run. There should be a little respect for the people’s sentiment associated with such days. It is strange that even the Opposition parties which are crying hoarse over a string of scams are mum on this ordeal we are suffering from day after weary day,” he added.
Venting her anger over the dismal state of things, Nibha, resident of Kewal Vihar said, “Following power- cut during morning hours, water supply was interrupted. We faced enormous problems as there were guests in the house to celebrate the occasion together. We wonder whether there would ever be a permanent solution to this seemingly perennial problem.”
The story was the same in several localities like Salawala, Vikaslok, Shiv lok Colony, Rajpur, Subhash Road, Jogiwala, Raipur and Sahastradhara crossing.
However, most intriguingly, UPCl release denied that there were any such things as power-cut in the city. Things in the districts were no better with the people grappling with long spells of power-cuts.