One of 66KV sub station in Chandigarh. (Source: Express photo) One of 66KV sub station in Chandigarh. (Source: Express photo) Even as city residents are sweating it out due to frequent power breakdowns caused by overloading of transmission infrastructure, Chandigarh electricity department has failed to energise two 66 kilovolt (KV) sub-stations. The sub-stations located at Khuda Lahora and Sector 34 are lying non-operational for past three years as they have not been connected with the transmission lines. At present, the city’s electricity infrastructure has the maximum load capacity of 410 megawatt (MW). Once energised, both the sub-stations will increase the capacity by 60MW, enabling the department to meet the projected peak load till 2018. Watch Video: What’s making news For the financial years of 2017-2018 and 2018-2019, the peak demand has been projected to be 450MW and 475MW respectively by the department. On May 20, the peak power demand touched 401 MW, breaking all previous records. The previous record was registered on July 11, 2014, when consumption had touched 395 MW. In the ongoing summer season, residents, especially in southern sectors are facing a harrowing time due to frequent outages caused by overloading of the system. The transformers have been observed to be running at more than 90 per cent of capacity. As per the Joint Electricity Regulatory Commission guidelines, load on transformer cannot be more than 80 per cent of its capacity. Slamming the department, UT Powermen Union general secretary Gopal Datt Joshi said that the general public is made to suffer due to lax attitude of the department. “Majority of the infrastructure has completed it’s life span. Both the sub-stations need to be made operational at the earliest,” said Joshi. As per the official records, there is one 220KV sub-station, 13 66KV sub-stations and five 33KV sub-station in the city. Each sub-station has a life span of 25 years and around six 66 KV sub-stations have completed their life span. Federation of Sector Federation of Sector Welfare Associations Chandigarh (FOSWAC) chairman Baljinder Singh Bittu, said,”Department has been regularly imposing unscheduled power cuts which makes life difficult for residents. This has been one of the worst summers.” The electricity department caters to 2.12 lakh consumers, out of which 1.75 lakh are in the domestic category. UT superintending engineer MP Singh blamed changes made in the General Financial Rules (GFRs) by the Centre for the delay in making the two sub-stations operational. “The process of selecting the agency for executing the work has changed. Now, a tender has to be floated, while earlier the agency was hired on nomination basis,” said MP Singh. He claimed that they had floated tenders twice, but failed to attract any agency.

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