Constant power failures are bad enough, but when consumers try to register complaints with the given helpline numbers, they are frustrated further with the numbers being constantly busy. Lodging a complaint takes anywhere between one to two hours. It takes even longer for a complaint to be attended to. Also, there are more complaints from certain areas of the city, which hints that power cuts are unev-enly imposed. Some areas have them more frequently or for longer durations.
“Our area, Tolichowki, is bearing the brunt of power cuts. Since the past couple of days, it is normal to have at least five hours of power cuts here, while other parts of the city get just an hour or two of power cuts,” says Ibrahim Usmani, a local resident. Morover, the operator at helpline services are extremely rude and often cut the call midway. “We had a power cut in our area for over five hours on Tuesday. Each time we called, the buck was passed on to someone else and we were given other landline and mobile numbers. On two of the numbers, the officials were very rude and asked what they could do if there is a power cut. It took them three hours to correct the error,” said V. Ramesh, a resident of Masab Tank.
The chief general manager, Metro Zone, Mr Satish Kumar, said that the entire city has scheduled two-hour power cuts a day. “But, in case of emergencies power cuts may increase,” he said. “We try to attend to major emergencies at the earliest — within half an hour to one hour — especially when there are multiple calls from an area.” And why does it take so long to connect on the helplines? “Since there are so many calls received a day, people find the calls busy all the time,” he said.