Gurgaon: A major fire at a Sector 9 substation on Wednesday night led to an overnight power outage in three residential societies, affecting nearly 1,500 families.Power supply was disrupted in Parina Laxmi Apartment, Parina Coban Society in Sector 99A and BPTP Amstoria in Sector 102. The worst hit was Parina Laxmi in Sector 99A, where around 650 families were left without any backup as the society lacks generator facilities. Even inverters in many flats failed during the prolonged cut. The power supply was restored after nine hours.The fire broke out at the 11 kV feeder around 11.30pm, prompting Dakshin Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam (DHBVN) officials to alert the fire department. Multiple fire tenders reached the spot and brought the blaze under control.Residents of Parina Coban and BPTP Amstoria experienced less inconvenience due to generator backup, but Parina Laxmi Apartment — developed under the Affordable Housing Scheme — suffered the most.DHBVN teams began restoration work around 5.30am and managed to resume supply by approximately 8.30am. Santosh Kumar, a resident of Parina Laxmi Apartment, said DHBVN attempted to temporarily shift the load to another feeder, but that too failed around 1 am. “We had to spend nearly seven and a half hours without electricity. Flats became suffocating and children and elderly people suffered the most,” he said.Residents of multiple societies — Spaze Privy in Sector 93, BPTP Terra in Sector 37D, Imperia Esfera in Sector 37C, M3M Woodshire in Sector 107 and ATS Kocoon in Sector 104 — are also facing frequent unannounced power cuts. Some societies report daily outages of two to five hours. Residents of Spaze Privy even submitted a complaint to the SDM stating power goes off every 15 minutes.“There is no shortage of electricity. Adequate supply is being provided. Issues arise only when a transformer or cable burns out and those are rectified immediately,” DHBVN superintendent engineer Shyambir Saini said.The incidents of tripping and outages have increased with the rise in temperature. Gurgaon has 1,261 substations of 11 kV, of which 168 reported 113 tripping incidents on Tuesday, with an average duration of two minutes. There were also 15 breakdowns, each over two hours on average. Most breakdowns were attributed to damaged cables and broken conductors triggered by intense heat. The city’s 86 substations of 33 kV reported no tripping, but one major breakdown was recorded at the Sector 95 substation, where a faulty switch caused an outage of nearly two hours.Across Haryana, of 6,740 substations of 11 kV in the state, 708 feeders tripped in a single day, while 33 out of 599 substations of 33 kV reported 44 tripping incidents and 15 breakdowns, with an average downtime of 1.51 hours.
