namma mejura

Yes, three times a day. That’s the ‘current’ situation (pun intended).

A 3-hour cut in the day, a 1 hour cut in the night before getting to sleep and finally another 1 hour cut between mid-night to 6am. It’s now official 5-hours power cut daily. Unprecedented – is the term that comes to mind.

But should we be complaining? or be thankful to Government?

People in rural areas were protesting 9-hour power cuts daily. That too when we had 3-hour power cuts in the city last week.

WATRAP: Over 500 farmers and women staged a road roko here on Friday protesting unannounced powers cut for up to 9 hours every day in the last week. Bus services were crippled and shops remained closed for four hours.

Read more at: http://www.hindu.com/2008/08/30/stories/2008083060600600.htm

Now that we have 5-hour cut, the rural people might suffer longer. However, the much pampered Chennai city is not affected much. In Chennai, the power cut duration is increased only to one and half hour daily from their previous one hour cut. Perhaps, the official Tamilnadu begins & ends in Chennai and the remaining areas merely a tail that can be wagged as desired.

After enduring power cuts of 1 hour and half-hour without any indication, Maduraiites finally received announced timings for powercut.  But it will be continuous 2 hour powercuts daily.

As announced in newspapers on Sunday, the 2 hour power shutdown started today.  Remains to be seen if there are no other cuts during the night.   The power cut also got a fancy new name, ‘Power Holiday’.

We are used to full day power cuts once (ok, mostly twice) a month. Usually they will shut down one or two areas in the city. I have already wondered in this blog that why such full day power cuts were not done in Chennai for ‘maintenance’?

Tomorrow, it will be a 9 am to 3 pm & 9 am to 5 pm power cuts for most part of the city. The news in The Hindu. . The list seem to cover almost all areas of Madurai. They didn’t seem to leave out any local area names. If you are nostalgic and away from the city for long, go through the area names below

There will be a power shutdown in several parts of the city and surrounding areas on Saturday, May 24, owing to maintenance work to be undertaken by the Tamil Nadu Electricity Board at its K. Pudur, Arasaradi, Anuppanadi, Tiruppalai, Manickampatti, Samayanallur, Teppakulam, Arapalayam and Chekkanoorani sub-stations:

From 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.: Alagarkoil Road, Bharati Ula Road, DRO Colony, Race Course Colony, Pudur Vandipathai Road, New Natham Road, Gokhale Road, Chinna Chokkikulam,

Visalakshipuram, P. T. Rajan Road, Race Course Road, Tamukkam, Manmalaimedu, Viswanathan Road, Kurinji Nagar, Tamil Nadu Slum Clearance Board Apartments, Meenambalpuram, Sathiyamoorthy Nagar, Singarayar Colony, Sonayar Kovil Street, Narimedu, Kattabomman Nagar and Poonthamalli Nagar.

Arapalayam, Karimedu, Mela Ponnagaram, Simmakkal, Yanaikkal, West Masi Street, North Masi Street, West Veli Street, Bethaniapuram, Natraj Nagar, Doak Nagar, Thuvariman, Kochadai, Vilangudi, Fatima College, ESI Hospital, Thathaneri, Sammattipuram, DSP Nagar, Ellis Nagar, S. S. Colony, Duraisamy Nagar, Vanamamalai Nagar, Jai Nagar, Ram Nagar, Meenakshi Nagar, State

Bank Officers’ Colony, Subramania Pillai Street and Bypass Road.

Khanpalayam, East Gate, New Ramnad Road, Anna Nagar, Aravind Eye Hospital, Viraganur, Silaiman, Iravadanallur, Puliyankulam, Panaiyur, Chinthamani, Anuppanadi, Chinna Anuppanadi, Samanatham and Azhagapuri.

Tiruppalai, Narayanapuram, Athikulam, Valluvar Nagar, Viswanathapuram, Mahatma Gandhi Nagar, Mullai Nagar, Sivakkadu, Kulamangalam, Krishnapuram Colony, Bibikulam, Marudupandiar Nagar, Kannanendal, Surya Nagar, Kadachanendal, Oomachikulam, Alanganallur, Sugar Mill, Valayapatti, Senthamangalam, Mettupatti, Narasingam, Uthangudi, Manmalaimedu, Iyer Bungalow, Srinagar, Alagarkoil Road, Kamala Nagar, DRO Colony, Race Course Colony, Karumbalai, Lady Doak College Road, Bhulabai Desai Road, Vallabhai Road, Jawahar Road, H. A. Khan Road, Pattaraikara Road, Besant Road, Kamarajar Nagar, Pudur Vandipathai, Pudur Natham Road, Reserve Line, Chokkikulam, Chinnachokkikulam, V. P. Rathinasamy Nadar Road and Visalakshipuram.

Rajakkalpatti, Maravarpatti, Chathira Vellalapatti, Valayapatti, Errampatti, Palamedu, Konapatti, Chinnapalamedu, Manickampatti, Senthamangalam, Kovilpatti, Azhagapuri, Ayyur and Kallanai.

From 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.: Samayanallur, Thenur, Tiruvedagam, Sholavandan, Melakkal, Nagari, Adalai, Paravai, Podumbu, Alanganallur, T. Mettupatti, Oorseri, Azhapuri and Vavidamarudur.

From 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.: Teppakulam, Adaikalam Pillai Colony, New Ramanathapuram Road, Teppakulam West, Kamarajar Road (up to East Gate), Pankajam Colony, Anuppanadi-Teppam Road, Anuppanadi East and West, Pagalavan Nagar, Meenakshi Nagar, New Meenakshi Nagar, CMR Road, Chinnakanmai, Indira Nagar, Old Kuyavarpalayam Road, Lakshmipuram Street 1 to 6, Khanpalayam Street 1 and 2, Pacharisikara Thoppu, Balarengapuram, Mynah Teppam Street 1 to 3 and Krishnapuram.

Arasaradi, AA Road, Arapalayam, Mela Ponnagaram, Karimedu, Ponnagaram, Ellis Nagar, Mahaboobpalayam, Visuvasapuri, Mani Nagaram, Workshop Road, Kanagavel Colony, Attu Manthai Pottal, Simmakkal, North Veli Street, Raja Mill Road, Scott Road and West Perumal Maistry Street.

Chekkanoorani, K. Puliyankulam, Panniyan, Kinnimangalam, Mavilipatti, Moonandipatti, A. Kokkulam, Karumathur, Kannanur, Sakkilipatti, Kovilankulam, Poochampatti, Jothimanickam, Vadapalanji, Thenpalanji and Palkalai Nagar.

UPDATE:
The power-cut was implemented as mentioned. Electricity promptly went off by 9AM. and back by 5PM in most places.

Gone are the days of continuous power supply, with declared full-day maintenance power-cuts twice a month. The summer that went by had a real spurt in the sale of A/c.s in Madurai. The sight of small individual houses sporting tiny split a/c boxes just above the sun-shade of their front door is not uncommon.

We don’t know whether this put an unmanageable demand on the Tamil Nadu Electricity Board (TNEB). But multiple power cuts has become a daily occurance for the last one month.

On an average, there are 5 power cuts a day. Some of them are 5 minute power-cuts, which looks like they are shifting from one power grid to another. But at least one of them will last anywhere between 45 minutes to 1hour 15 minutes. There is no standard time schedule for this, and the duration of long power-cut varies every day.

Officially they claim that there is no power shortage, and these power-cuts are only maintenance power-cuts. We all know that TN Govt., always fights shy of accepting power shortages, irrespective of which political party is ruling it. Their efforts for not providing fodder to opposition parties are legendary.

The questions is, are they deliberately varying the time duration & time schedule of these nearly 1 hour power-cuts, to stop from being branded as acute power shortage?

In this city, full day power cuts 9am to 5pm (or 9am to 3pm in a few cases) on Saturdays is getting regular. Each saturday almost half of the city goes without electricity. So each part of the city regularly undergo full day power cut twice a month.

It is officially declared as ”maintenance work” and announced in newspapers. But we are at a loss to understand why the EB should cut power for maintenance work, especially since the same EB is able to maintain their network without full day power cuts in Chennai.

Is Madurai economy too small to provide alternatives??