Voltage fluctuation damages appliances worth lakhs

 Ramkrishan Upadhyay   

Tribune News Service   

Chandigarh,  June 15

Fluctuation in voltage damaged appliances worth lakhs in several houses in Sector 21-B today.  

A major tragedy was averted in one of the houses where sparking in a ceiling  fan due to high voltage caused  a fire.

Ravi Jain, a resident of Sector 21-B, said luckily nobody was sleeping in the room when the fire broke out.

He said a bed and clothes were destroyed in the fire while two LCD sets and a fridge were burnt.  Almost all houses in the locality lost  two or three  appliances due to the voltage fluctuation.   Air conditioners were also damaged in some houses.

Residents said they faced a power cut all through the night yesterday. They tried calling up the complaint centre, but there was no response. A resident said in the  morning  when the power supply was restored, the voltage suddenly increased following which there was a sound similar to an explosion and all their equipment connected with electricity burnt.  

 This is the  second such incident  in the past 15 days in which high voltage has damaged home appliances. Earlier, residents of the Sector  28  had faced  a similar  problem.  

Residents of Sector 22-B also faced a power outage for over 14 hours. They also tried contacting the   complaint  centre, but in vain.

Fed up, when they went to the electricity office, the officer concerned told them that the  wire had to be changed, which was not available, and asked them to purchase it from the  market. A resident said it was unfortunate that the department did not even  have the wire though it wanted the tariff to be increased.