A power department personnel climbs atop a power transformer at Church road, Dimapur in an effort to repair them. (Morung File Photo)
Kanili Kiho
Dimapur | May 11
Over the last few days, Dimapur has been reeling under intense rise in temperature, and the city’s erratic power cuts have added to its woes.
“Power outages in the State come as no surprise as the consumers face it the whole year round. It’s just that it escalates during summer and the problem is heightened,” said Yimsolong who lives in Residency colony. “Having a low voltage is like a norm for some neighbouring colonies. One cannot rely on your electric cooker even to cook your rice,” he quipped. He said that the power cuts though frequent are ‘very uncertain and unpredictable.’
Like Yimsolong, several consumers said that they keep reading articles on power troubles every other day, with no countermeasure from any end. “It’s like a vicious cycle that has overtaken the entire State,” said one of the consumers.
A consumer in Oriental colony said that there have been extreme power fluctuations for the last three weeks. Due to these irregularities, the household electrical appliances have been damaged.
For the residents of Chekiye village and Diphupar, come rain or wind, the power religiously goes off. They informed that this has been going on for as long as they can remember.
Consumers from PWD colony and Duncan Basti also reported of irregular power fluctuations.
Addressing the issue, SDO Power, Dimapur Er Oren Ovung said that “as long as we get power from the genetic station, the power supply is good, unless there is a line problem and line fault. However, that doesn’t take much time to restore it,” he said.
Because of the storm and the rain last Sunday (May 8), “we experienced a little bit of problem but it was not persistent. So as of now, that is ok.”
He also attributed one of the reasons for the irregular power supply to load shedding which is being implemented at present. It may be mentioned that the Power department falls under three divisions – Generation, Transmission and Distribution.
Ovung said that since their division is looking after the revenue and the maintenance, the transmission and distribution of power supply is beyond their control and purview.
According to Executive Engineer of Dimapur Electrical Division, Y Akito Sema, on the dispensing of power supply at this juncture, as far as their division is concerned, “we are giving our best.”
He attributed the power outage to the recent storm and rain, “Especially last Sunday that wrecked havoc in the entire city and the electricians were up all night trying to restore the connection. Apart from that, this is all beyond our control,” he added.
“Load shedding is not within our control and moreover, load shedding depends on the availability of power supply, so I cannot determine it. So, apart from that, I think we are trying our best,” he added.
When natural disasters strike, he said that the systems being old and fragile cannot take on the pressure. On the issue of power cuts across the State, Sema observed that the consumers are also mostly lacking civic sense, in the sense that they want to maintain trees along with the power transmission in the same vicinity. “They are building houses and planting trees just near the electrical lines,” he said while adding, “There are certain things which we are unable to control.”
The Executive Engineer (Transmission Division) could not be contacted during the filing of this report.
