CHENNAI: When the clock ticks ten at night, Ravi picks up his mobile to dial 155333. Its almost a routine now for the resident of West Saidapet. Well, he is not the one among the thousands of crazy TV viewers, who is desperate to participate in live phone-in programmes of Tamil satellite channels. , but curious to report about power cuts to the centralised call centre of the Tamil Nadu Electricity Board.“I have been registering complaints almost every night for the last five days, since my three months old baby can’t sleep without fan during the dog days,” Ravi, a father of three children, residing at Subramani Mudali Street in West Saidapet lamented. Akin him, hundreds of residents in this middle class locality (West Saidapet) are reeling under the heat of frequent power cuts, virtually giving them sleepless nights.Of late, electricity has become a crucial issue in this part of the city, with erratic power supply is affecting people from all walks of life, at a time when the summer is at its peak. It is a common scene on the streets of West Saidapet, where people converge at nights to express their grouses against the electricity department even as tiny tots cry due to poor air circulation in the absence of electricity.According to Arun Kumar, a tailor, at Koothadul Pillaiyar Koil Street, electricity failure has become order of the day, of late. “Now, I am stitching only two shirts in the place of eight, thanks to regular power cuts. My earnings have declined considerably, in the last five days,” he rued, while standing outside his tailor shop without power on Thursday morning.Also, the residents complain about regular power drips, which affects the high end household electrical items such as refrigerators and airconditioner machines. The residents are of the view that an additional transformer in the locality would ensure uninterrupted power supply.However, official sources with the electricity department turn the tables on airconditioners. “Airconditioners are no more luxury and most of these machines are switched on after nine in the night. This pushes the load, resulting in burning of cables, leading to power cuts in the city,” an official pointed out.When contacted, C Jeyachandran, Assistant Executive Engineer, TNEB, Saidapet stated that a place has been identified at Subramani Koil Street for setting up a new transformer. “Besides, we have also written to the Government for establishing single pole transformer capacity 25 KV in ten streets of Saidapet,” he added.
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