Chennai: There seems to be no end to electricity consumers’ woes in and around the city. The new Fuse Off Call (FOC) mobile numbers issued to section offices of the Tamil Nadu Power Distribution Corporation Limited (TNPDCL) to receive grievances are either inactive or not reachable.Consumers across the city complain that they are unable to alert the assistant engineer’s office in case of power disruption, transformer fire, or a snapped cable since the FOC numbers are not yet activated in many areas. V Nagarajan of Manapakkam said, “Residents are fed up with this situation. We have to call the Minnagam portal (24/7 electricity consumer care center), where a solution is not assured. Essential services should not function like this,” he said. T Sadagopan of Pattabiram said the FOC number for his locality is also not active.Though TNPDCL senior officials said all the numbers are active, field officers had a different version. “The new SIM cards could be activated only via JIO phones and cannot be used with any other phone. So we are forced to buy a new phone to activate the card. It costs around ₹1,000 to ₹1,500. We were not told about this when the SIM cards were issued,” said a field officer.TVK govt revived the FOC system after the city witnessed major power outages in June and July due to failures in the distribution network. As many as 77 FOC numbers were issued in addition to the 70 numbers which were already active.Meanwhile, telecom service provider AirTel suspended its services to TNPDCL earlier this month without transferring the services to JIO under number portability, leaving all field officers of TNPDCL as well as FOC centres inaccessible to consumers. Later, JIO issued the new SIM cards and numbers to replace the existing numbers.Sadagopan says TNPDCL should make efforts to create more awareness about the FOC numbers. “Publishing it on the website and social media is not enough. Even Minnagam representatives are not aware of FOC numbers of a particular region. Officials whose old numbers were part of different residents’ WhatsApp groups should voluntarily add the new numbers to be aware of what is happening in their jurisdiction with respect to power supply,” he added.
