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Midnight black-out frightens Kolkata

Special Correspondent

- Photo: PTI

MID-DAY CELEBRATION: Cricket star Sourav Ganguly plays the “dhak” on the occasion of Maha Ashtami at a Durga Puja pandal near his Behala residence in Kolkata on Saturday.

KOLKATA: An unprecedented 15-minute midnight power cut on Friday night at some of the major Puja pandals thronged by thousands of people in South Kolkata forced the Government to convene a high-level meeting at the State Secretariat on Saturday. The State Power Secretary was asked to submit a report on the incident to the Government within a day.

“I felt panicky and helpless – I was very worried,” Chief Secretary Ashok Mohan Chakraborty admitted before the media after holding a meeting with senior officials of the West Bengal Power Development Corporation, West Bengal State Electricity Distribution Company Ltd and CESC, the private sector power utility which serves the city and its precincts. While there was a 17-minute power cut in the South, in North Kolkata puja pandals the power cut lasted about seven minutes.

The Puja pandals in South Kolkata which were plunged into darkness included ones where at least 15,000 people were present at the time of the disruption. Policemen, volunteers and organisers of the community pujas managed the situation by switching on torches and asking people not to panic. No untoward incident took place, the police said, though they admitted that such a power cut during peak hours was totally undesirable at a time when the city was under a security alert following intelligence information.

“There were women and children at the mandap and outside and there is total darkness – this is unwarranted and totally unacceptable!” said Mr. Chakraborty, adding that prima facie it appeared to be a fault in load management distribution. He said that action would be taken against those responsible for this.

While admitting that the incident was unprecedented, CESC’s official spokesman said there was a 14-minute shutdown at the Kasba feeder station of CESC in South Kolkata as there was the tripping of a circuit-breaker. “It was a technical tripping” he said, adding that the incident in the North was a separate local disruption.

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