Chennai: As the unannounced and prolonged power cuts continue to plague different pockets of the city, people resorted to protests and road blockades to register their protest. Residents of Palavakkam suffered without electricity for nearly six hours on Thursday night.It prompted a large number of residents to block the ECR stretch at midnight hindering vehicle movements including mofussil buses bringing traffic to a halt. Police personnel rushed to the spot and held talks with residents. Protesters had an argument with police personnel, saying the local EB personnel were lethargic in restoring power supply. Finally, the power supply was restored after 1.30am.Kamaraj, a resident of Palavakkam, said children, senior citizens, office-goers suffer due to long outages during night hours.TNEB officials said the outage was due to a fault in the ring main unit (RMU) linked to Palavakkam power feeder. “There was network failure in Kalakshetra colony, leading to power cuts. So, backfeeding of power was arranged from Palavakkam feeder, but a fault in the RMU led to power cut in Palavakkam too,” said an official.On Thursday too, power cuts were reported in different areas due to rains. In Vandalur, power supply was suspended for two hours even as rains stopped in 30 minutes, said Jebaraj, a resident. Pudupet, Teynampet, Park Town, Tirumullaivoyal, Chintadripet, Moovarasampet, Velachery were some of the areas power cuts were reported due to faults in the distribution network.
