Pune: A section of residents in Manjari spent a sleepless Sunday night following an 18-hour power cut in the Z Corner and 40-feet road areas triggered by damage to an underground cable during heavy rainfall over the weekend. The residents said the power cut began at 1am on Sunday. Dhaval Sawant, section engineer of the Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company ( MSEDCL ), said the power utility could not initiate immediate repairs as workers had to dig up almost seven feet of the concrete road to reach the damaged cable.
“We could not also provide alternate supply as the area is isolated. We have put up a proposal for additional transformers to distribute the demand load, but there is no vacant plot. The area was recently included in the Pune Municipal Corporation limits,” Sawant said.
MSEDCL officials said they also faced resistance from the residents while conducting the repairs. The 40-foot concrete road in the area did not have a margin for paver blocks for the power lines. “So, it took a lot of time for the repairs,” Manjari resident Rajesh Gaikwad said.
“There are no backup generators in many of the buildings. We had to spend most of the time without water as pumps did not work without electricity. Many residents were on the streets waiting for the repairs to be completed.
Electricity supply to more than 50-70 buildings was disrupted during the outage,” he said. The residents said it was a regular occurrence. A resident said new buildings were comin.