Amid power cuts, discom officials transferred

NOIDA: After the heatwave took a toll on power supply across NCR, resulting in widespread outages, several discom officials were transferred in Noida and Ghaziabad by Uttar Pradesh Power Corporation Limited (UPPCL). Among them were the chief engineer of PVVNL in Noida as well as two chief engineers of zones 1 and 2 of Ghaziabad. Several superintending and executive engineers were also transferred as power cuts continued on Sunday.
Rajeev Mohan, chief engineer (CE) of the Noida zone has been transferred to Lucknow and replaced by Harish Bansal from Ayodhya as the new Noida CE of PVVNL. He is expected to take charge this week. In Ghaziabad, CE zone 1 Neeraj Swaroop and CE zone 2 PK Singh have also been transferred to Lucknow. Their replacements are yet to be announced.
While the superintending engineer (SE) of Circle 1 Noida has been transferred to Purvanchal Vidyut Vitran Nigam (PUVVNL), SE Nandlal of Circle 2 Noida has been transferred to Dakshinanchal Vidyut Vitran Nigam Limited (DVVNL).
Also, executive engineer (EE) Mandeep Singh posted in block-3 under circle 2 Noida has been transferred to DVVNL and EE Deepak Kumar posted in Greater Noida has been transferred to Kanpur Electricity Supply Company Limited (KESCO).
Further, executive engineer block-2 meter testing Shiv Kumar has been transferred to DVVNL, EE block-2 Rachit Khanna has been transferred to PUVVNL, EE Avnish Kumar posted in block-4 has been transferred to Madhyanchal Vidyut Vitran Nigam Limited (MVVNL) and EE Alok Prakash posted in block-8 has been transferred to DVVNL.
In Ghaziabad, EE Mrityunjay Pathak of Division 8 and EE Yadvendra Singh EE Division 10 have been transferred. Apart from this, many assistant engineers have also been transferred to Purvanchal, Dakshinchal, Madhyanchal Vidyut Vitran Nigams.
At present, no replacement of officials transferred is awaited in Noida apart from CE, the new deployment is expected in the next one or two days through PVVNL.
The transfers have resulted in widespread speculations on social media platforms. Continued poor power supply following the dismal pace of repair and infra-upgrade work have been inferred as the main reasons.
In Noida, repair and capacity enhancement of transformers and substations is underway on a budget of about Rs 250 crore, while in Ghaziabad the same is underway on a budget of about Rs 130 crore for 2023-24.
Residents in both cities have been complaining of slow paced work, not as per the desired standards, resulting in unannounced power cuts, tripping and low voltage due to local faults even in this season.
Even though demand has come down from the peak heatwave situation last month to 2300MW in Noida and 1350MW in Ghaziabad against 2468MW in Noida and about 1550 MW in Ghaziabad in June, outages continue due to humidity and weakened strength of cables, overloading of transformers and other equipment snag.
Ajay Ojha current chief engineer of zone 3 Ghaziabad told TOI that the budget for repair and infra work for 2023-24 for the entire Ghaziabad was around Rs 130 crore. “In that, about 20% of work is left to be completed even as more business plans are awaiting approval and being made for pending works,” said Ojha.