Darjeeling lights flicker back - Town power supply back, rural outskirts in dark since Saturday

Vivek Chhetri, TT, Darjeeling, April 7: Rural areas of Darjeeling may have to wait for another 48 hours for power to be restored after going without electricity since Saturday evening.

In Darjeeling town, power was restored in over 90 per cent of the localities by this afternoon.

The town and its outskirts went dark at 8.10pm on Saturday, around 10 minutes after a storm started in the hills. Around 200 electricity poles were either uprooted or damaged in the gusty winds.

The storm, which lasted for about 45 minutes on Saturday night, also caused widespread damage to private and public properties.

Sibesh Deb, the regional manager of the West Bengal State Electricity Distribution Corporation Limited, said: "Around 200 poles were uprooted in the hills. However, by today 90 per cent of supply has been restored in the urban areas and in the next two days power will be restored completely even in the rural areas."

Asked why restoring power was taking so much time, Deb said: "We have to replace 200 electricity poles. That is taking time."

On Sunday and Monday, power was restored in some areas of the town but the majority of localities got power supply only this morning. Hotels and business establishments were sufferers along with the general public in the beginning of the tourist season.

D. P. Sarkar, the manager of The Retreat resort on the Mall Road, said: "We received electricity around 11pm last night. We had no option but to continuously run our generators, only stopping them for about an hour after six to seven hours. On Sunday, since all the petrol pumps in Darjeeling were closed, we had to get diesel from Sonada (about 25km from Darjeeling)."

Sarkar had to buy 145 litres of diesel since Saturday.

Rink Mall, which is the biggest shopping destination in town, had to burn almost 50 to 60 litres an hour. "The Mall houses two banks, three insurances offices, a number of shops, a Big Bazar, an Inox multiplex and retail outlets of various brands. We had to provide electricity till 11pm," said Vikramjit Dhir, the mall manager. Power was restored at Rink Mall around 4.30pm today.

Chandmari, Haridashatta, Rajbari and Batasia areas were dark till this evening.