Power supply yet to be restored in high-altitude areas

Tribune News Service

Dehradun, December 23

Residents living in mountainous areas of the state are still facing the brunt of power outage, despite more than five days having passed since the first snowfall coupled with torrential rain lashed the upper reaches of the state.

Villagers in more than 300 small hamlets in Almora and Chamoli districts respectively have been without electricity for the last one week.

Uttarakhand Power Corporation Limited (UPCL) officials claimed that necessary exercise is already on to restore power supply in the affected areas.

The latest data compiled by UPCL clearly highlighted that out of the affected 915 villages in Almora district, electricitysupply was restored to 615 villages, while power supply was restored to most of the villages out of the affected 1,121 villages except 334 villages in Chamoli district.

Besides repair work, re-laying of transmission lines and replacement of damaged electricity poles have been taken up to restore electricity in five, two, 27 and 15 villages in Champawat, Tehri, Pithoragarh and Nainital districts respectively.

Speaking with The Tribune, Madhusudan, an official spokesman of UPCL, said inclement weather is having an adverse affect on repair and renovation work in the snow-clad areas of the state.

He said latest equipment had already been supplied in order to restore electricity in the affected areas.

Madhusudan said snowfall had an adverse effect on repair of transmission lines, electricity poles and other distribution-related equipment.

He said repair and renovation work is being undertaken on a war footing. He expressed the hope that power supply would be resumed in the affected areas soon.

UPCL data said the power demand is hovering near 34.84 million units against the availability of 33.98 million units per day. UPCL enforced a two-hour power cut in Haridwar and Udham Singh Nagar district in order to meet the electricity demand in the state.