Persistent rain disrupted Lucknow’s power supply, with around 70 tree-fall incidents damaging more than 100 overhead power lines and over 130 poles and wires across the city and adjoining rural areas. Outages lasted four to 14 hours in several urban areas, while some villages in the Mohanlalganj-Nigohan-Nagram belt remained without power for nearly 72 hours.
Principal Secretary, Energy and UPPCL Chairman Ranveer Prasad has directed officials to keep a close watch on the situation. Police sent the body for post-mortem. The Uttar Pradesh Power Corporation Tender Contract Employees’ Union has demanded an inquiry into the death.
The disruption was accompanied by a fatal accident at the Omega substation in Chinhat, where contractual worker Ranjit Rawat, 35, died of an electric shock while working on an 11-kV line. The department said no official breakdown had been registered through 1912 or at the JE/SDO level. Rawat, who was working through outsourcing agency, Rawat is survived by his wife and two children, aged 12 and six.
Amid widespread disruption, the power corporation said electricity supply was being continuously monitored at the state level from Shakti Bhawan. The worker had taken shutdown of a different line instead of the line on which he was working, according to executive engineer Abhay Kumar Singh.
