Chennai: Power cuts continued in the city and its suburbs, even on a Sunday, with several residential neighbourhoods reporting outages that lasted hours. Tamil Nadu Power Distribution Corporation Ltd (TNPDCL) continues to cite cable faults, equipment failures, and maintenance work as reasons for the disruptions.Power supply was affected in Ezhil Nagar and Tsunami Nagar in Okkiyam Thoraipakkam on Sunday afternoon after a fault developed in a 300 sqmm high-tension underground cable on the 11 kV Ezhil Nagar feeder. The power cut lasted for about three hours. In Velachery, the high-tension underground cable of the 11 kV Ram Nagar feeder was damaged during stormwater drain work in the morning. This led to a blackout in VOC Nagar.Similarly, residents of Aravamuthan Garden Street in Vepery reported a power disruption due to a fault in an underground cable. In Mylapore, there was no power from 10am to 4.30pm due to a fault in the 240 mm main underground power cable.“Though it is Oct, it feels like April, and the extreme heat causes heavy discomfort even for a minute without electricity,” said Vignesh Kumar, a resident of Kottivakkam.Meanwhile, maintenance work on the distribution box and transformer on the 11 kV ECR feeder under the Kottivakkam substation was carried out on Sunday, causing power cuts in surrounding areas. Similarly, maintenance work was cited as the cause of power cuts in Tiruvottiyur.A five-hour power cut in Tiruvallur district forced people to throng the Chennai-Kolkata National Highway to protest. They said they had been facing the same problem every other day, with no clarification from TNPDCL officials.When contacted, TNDPCL officials said the power outage in Tiruvallur was due to a fault in a busbar and insulator at the 110 kV section of the 230 kV Gummidipoondi substation. “The outage affected Gummidipoondi, SIPCOT (Phases 1, 2 and 4), Panchetti, Ponneri and Thandalam. Power supply was immediately rerouted through the Melur substation, and supply to Panchetti and Ponneri was restored at 12.15am. Repair work continued, and power supply was fully restored to all affected areas at 2.29am,” an official said.
