Power cut: Avadi residents lay siege to substation

Hundreds of residents in Avadi and nearby areas gathered at the Kamaraj Nagar substation on Friday after an early-morning power cut, turning the complaint into a street protest and briefly disrupting traffic on CTH Road.

Police reached the spot and pacified the protesters, while a video of the scene circulated widely online.

Protest after the outage

According to the report, the blackout triggered anger among residents who said the outage had hit them in the early hours of the day. Some protesters staged a road roko on CTH Road, adding to the disruption in the densely populated Chennai suburb.

The exact technical cause of the Avadi outage has not been publicly confirmed in the reporting, and the duration of the interruption before supply was restored was not immediately clear.

Part of a wider pattern

The Avadi protest comes amid repeated power interruptions in Chennai and its suburbs over recent days. Residents across the city and surrounding areas have complained of frequent, unannounced and sometimes prolonged cuts, particularly at night, affecting daily routines.

Earlier reporting also linked one Avadi outage to stolen power fuses, while another was attributed to an 11kV feeder trip and restored around 1 am.

Official response

Separately, TNPDCL has said it has revived defunct fuse-off call helplines and set up 77 dedicated helplines across Chennai and its suburbs to speed up responses to power-cut complaints. Residents can also use the Minnagam helpline, 9498794987, to report issues.

The latest protest adds pressure on the utility to respond faster as summer power disruptions continue to draw public anger in the Chennai metro area.