Thursday, 3 August 2017

Gurgaon: A dark city or a smart city?

A city qualifies as a smart city on the basis of its infrastructure and facilities. By this fundamental logic, Gurgaon is anything but smart. The residents have been contending with long power outages for the third consecutive day.  

Sector 14, Sector 17C, South City I, Ardee City, Sushant Lok I, Sector 56 and Sector 57 are the worst hit. “This is the third day we have been suffering a 12-hour-long power cut. Surprisingly, the electricity comes and goes in intervals. If a technical issue had been causing these power cuts, the interruption would have happened in one complete stretch,” said Ishdeep Singh, a resident of Ardee City. 
Gurgaon News
 
Though electricity has been restored to Sector 17C, the situation is not yet stable. “Charging invertors has also become a challenge,” said Deepak Verma, a resident of Sector 17C.
 
The power outages can be attributed to old wiring, lack of tree-pruning and old, rickety transformers. However, the electricity board feels there is no single issue.
 
Speaking to City Spidey, KC Aggarwal, senior engineer, Gurgaon, DHVBN, said, “The feeders and transformers are all working fine. However, if any sector faces an issue, it needs to register its complaints with the respective area XENs.” 
Even though the electricity board refuses to admit to the power issue, residents continue to suffer and are practically living in a dark city, not a smart one.