Despite grand announcements of curtailing power cuts in the month of Ramzan, the situation remains unchanged in the Old City with fasting residents complaining about not being able to hear the Iftar gong in the evenings.
Unscheduled power cuts during Iftar and night-time prayers are still the norm in Moinbagh, Dabeerpura and its surrounding area of Bagh-e-Jahan Ara. Areas falling under Hussainialam, Moghulpura, Charminar, Falaknuma, Chandrayangutta and Salala are also facing the unannounced power outages.
Annoyed residents said that for the past several years the state government had been ensuring uninterrupted power supply during the holy month, but this year they are getting hugely inconvenienced. These unannounced breakdowns are mostly in the middle of the night, they said. “There seems to be no schedule as such. We are facing power disruptions between 7 pm and 12 am every other day for 30 minutes or so though the authorities had promised that there would be no breakdowns between the Iftar and Sehri,” remarked a resident.
Residents of Moghalpura and Khilwat maintained that the outages are mostly after 11 pm. “On Tuesday night, there was a power cut for half an hour from 11 pm. This was the case a couple of days ago too. There were power disruptions at around 5 am as well. We need to wake up at around 3 am to cook for Sehri and such power cuts are an inconvenience,” said Sameena Fatima, a resident of Moghalpura.
Rains are adding to the power problem. Residents of Falaknuma said that they managed to take their pre-dawn meal in candlelight last Saturday because of the breakdown. “A slight hint of heavy rain and the power goes kaput. Making matters worse, the toll free number of CPDCL doesn’t get connected through a mobile phone,” claimed Husna Khan.
Area corporators are also grumbling about the lack of preparation on part of the GHMC. They said that despite lodging complaints, a chunk of the streetlights in this part of the city continue to remain out of order. “The problem is more in residential areas where it gets completely dark. Since devout return late in the night after taraweeh prayers, it is becoming a concern,” said Hussani Alam corporator, Mir Zulfequar Ali. Fortunately, Mecca Masjid is getting uninterrupted power supply. Officials here said that a separate transformer has been installed for the holy month to ensure round the clock power supply to the mosque.
CPDCL officials said they are not in a position to comply with chief minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy’s direction to lift power cuts in the Old City. Officials said that they cannot afford to lift the three-hour power cuts as the situation is bad. However, they denied reports of unscheduled power cuts. “Whatever outages are happening in addition to the set schedule, they must be due to local problems,” said an official.
–_Courtesy:Timesofindia
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/hyderabad/Broken-promise-Its-a-dark-Ramzan-in-Old-City/articleshow/15152021.cms