Lucknow Power Cut: NHAI Cable Damage Hits Over 11,000 Consumers In Kakori; Compensation Demanded

Road widening work on the Lucknow-Hardoi highway left Kakori town and adjoining areas without power for nearly 25 hours after a JCB cut through an underground 33 kV line on Sunday morning.

The incident occurred near the Bajnagar railway overbridge, where a contractor engaged by the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) accidentally damaged the cable around 9 am. Electricity supply was restored only by 10 am on Monday, leaving about 11,000 consumers across 50 villages without power and water.

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Affected areas included Kakori town, Hardoi Road, Tikaitganj, Budhadiya, Rasulpur, Allupur, Khalishpur, Shahpur, Bhatau Jamalpur, Saraiyya, Basraila, Bhulaikheda, Bhaliya, Abid Kheda Bighu, Gohramau, Simramau, Bahru, Nai Basti, Bandakheda, Mehandinagar, Tiluswa, Bhagmatkheda, and Gurdinkheda, among others.

Residents staged protests at the site on Sunday, demanding immediate restoration of electricity. Engineers and staff worked overnight, finally replacing the damaged cable by Monday morning.

According to Superintending Engineer Bhavishya Kumar Saxena (Circle Four), the electricity department has issued a notice of Rs 10 lakh to the NHAI, covering the cost of laying 500 metres of new cable and other expenses. A formal complaint has also been filed with Kakori police against the NHAI for negligence.

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Separately, engineers reported an additional outage of about two hours on Sunday afternoon due to a flashover in the vacuum circuit breaker at the Sarosa power substation, which further compounded the crisis.