Power supply will be suspended in your area between 9 am and 5 pm for maintenance work- that could be a text message landing in your inbox soon from the Tamil Nadu Electricity Board (TNEB). The messaging system to alert residents of outages is part of the Restructured Accelerated Power Development and Reforms Programme (RAPDRP) of the Union power ministry.
TNEB usually suspends power supply in some areas for maintenance of transformers between 9 am and 5 pm. Many consumers miss the announcements of outages in dailies, and are caught unawares. “Everyone has a mobile phone nowadays. Once the power shutdown schedule is prepared, the section office will send a text message to consumers under its jurisdiction. The message will have details about the streets where power supply would be disrupted and also when it would be restored,” said a senior TNEB official. He said that soon consumers will also be able to get details of their TNEB power connection by calling a centralised consumer service unit..