Two Noida societies, same problem. What's the builder doing?

Amid the prevailing heat wave, residents of two societies in Sector 76, Noida, have been facing disrupted power supply for the past few weeks now. 

Residents of Amrapali Princely Estate today lodged a complaint with the Sector 49 police station against the project developer. They accused the builder of stealing electricity to harass them.  

In the complaint, they informed the police that the builder had provided illegal connections to construction labourers. This led to an overload on the transformers, causing power failures. 

Residents complained that instead of providing them electricity from PVVNL, the public power distribution company in Noida, the builder had been supplying them power from a diesel generator (DG) for the past few weeks. According to the residents, the builder has been doing this intentionally, to extort thrice the prevailing consumption rate per unit set by PVVNL. 

The letter, signed by 18 residents of the society, said they had been going through immense inconvenience. Residents said they had been paying the builder in advance, despite receiving inadequate power supply. Dhananjay Kaul, a resident, said they wanted the police to take strict action. 

Amrapali Silicon City, also in Sector 76 and developed by the same builder, is facing similar issues. Residents complained they faced severe voltage-fluctuation problems. 

Avinash Tyagi, a resident of the society, said it was high time the builder upgraded the society’s transformer. The existing transformer was incapable of bearing the increased load of consumption, due to which there were persistent issues of voltage fluctuations. "Home appliances are getting damaged because of these frequent power fluctuations,” he said. “It is driving us crazy. You can see residents walking around the society at night because they can't sleep! We don’t have any hopes of improvement, as all the builder’s promises have proved false." 

When City Spidey spoke to Raghvendra Yadav, executive engineer with PVVNL, he confirmed that there was no disruption in power supply from their end. According to Yadav, these societies received round-the-clock supply from them. 

Yadav said there was an issue of transformer-overload, which were causing the power failures. He said he was also aware of the builder supplying power to construction labourers. “Both these societies need a new transformer each to cater to the increased power load,” said Yadav. “The builder has promised that there will be new transformers by next week.”