Power cut woes worsen as officials’ contact numbers stay unreachable

CHENNAI: Electricity consumers struggling with unannounced power cuts are now facing another problem: they cannot reach either TNPDCL officials in the city or Fuse of Call (FOC) centres responsible for addressing their complaints.

Several consumers who tried calling local engineers and field staff on their official corporate user group (CUG) numbers said the calls failed to connect, with an automated message stating that the numbers did not have an incoming call facility. The calls were then disconnected.

The communication breakdown has come at a particularly inconvenient time, with consumers in several areas complaining of unexplained power outages, especially at night.

T Sadagopan, president of the Tamil Nadu Progressive Consumer Centre, said he had been trying to contact engineers in Avadi and FOC numbers since Sunday evening. “I tried five or six officials’ numbers, but none of them is working. How can the utility have its CUG numbers not working? How will consumers contact officials?” he asked.

He said consumers normally contacted FOC centres to register complaints when officials could not be reached. “All the FOC numbers were also disconnected. It is totally unacceptable,” he said.

Elaborating on the situation in north Chennai, civic activist LM Jaiganesh said he had tried contacting the assistant engineer in Vyasarpadi over abandoned electric poles in the first block of 9th Street in Ward 35, but could not get through. He asked, “Officials told me that their CUG numbers had not been working for the past

Despite TNPDCL order to migrate existing Airtel CUG numbers to Reliance Jio via MNP, many officials have not completed the process few days. It is shocking. How can official mobile numbers remain non-functional?”

The TNPDCL officials attributed the failure to an issue with telecom service provider Airtel and said the utility was in the process of shifting the connections to Reliance Jio or BSNL.

“Nearly 3,000 CUG numbers on Airtel were disconnected. Airtel did not match the offer made by Jio and BSNL. We had asked officials to migrate for the last six months. Some of them did not act, which led to the present crisis, while most migrated through mobile number portability,” a senior official said, adding MNP could not be completed for some connections and TNPDCL had instructed the officials concerned to obtain new numbers, will be published in the telephone directory and on social media, he said.

The explanation, however, raises questions about TNPDCL’s preparedness. A TNPDCL order on July 28 said the existing Airtel CUG connections were to be migrated to Reliance Jio through mobile number portability. The order also provided for new SIM cards and CUG numbers from Jio or BSNL if Airtel services were disconnected.