Several pockets between Jadavpur and Garia went without power from Monday morning, after workers engaged by the Calcutta Environment Improvement Project (CEIP) to lay underground sewer lines on SC Mullick Road allegedly damaged the electricity feeder lines at two places.

?The underground cable was first damaged in the morning. It was soon repaired and power supply was restored. But the cable was damaged again, at another place, in the afternoon. This is a high-tension fault and will take hours to locate and repair,? a CESC official said.

Officials said power supply is likely to be restored early on Tuesday.

?The disruption was caused during the laying of underground sewer lines, under the ADB-funded CEIP. The civic body?s deep-tubewell network in the area has not been affected,? said Bibhas Maity, chief engineer (water supply) of the Calcutta Municipal Corporation.

CEIP?s director-general (project) Uday Sankar Sengupta, however, said that it was the civic body that was laying the pipes.

Local councillor Batakrishna Roy alleged: ?Since this morning, we have been facing prolonged hours of power failure. I called up the power utility?s district engineer and asked him to take measures to restore electricity supply at the earliest.?

Roy said the worst-affected areas were Central Park, Ganguly Bagan and Ramgarh.

?There is an acute water crisis in the area?s multi-storeyed buildings, as pumps cannot be operated,? said Roy.

Residents of highrises were seen queuing up in front of tubewells.

The CESC officials said they had taken up with the government the problem of underground electric cables being damaged by the CMC and the Calcutta Telephones.

?The agencies never inform us before digging up the roads where CESC cables are laid,? said an official.