Hyderabad: Even with the power demand dropping in winters, people in the twin cities cannot expect freedom from power cuts.

More annoyingly, every time a citizen dials the local electricity office number to lodge a complaint, either no one picks the call or there is a standard reply: The area has encountered a maintenance/emergency issue.

Residents of Marredpally and Padmaraonagar areas in city woke up to early morning load shedding on Monday. The power cuts also resulted in worried citizens wanting to know if the scheduled cuts were back.

The local area office, however, did not respond to repeated calls from locals. When this reporter tried the numbers of the electricity office in Marredpally, the calls were repeatedly cut.

“Seven out of 10 times that I called the Asifnagar office, I was told that the power will be back within half-an-hour.

However, the power was not restored. On calling up again, a new person answered call and he had no clue of the previous complaint that I had registered,” said Moin Khan, a harassed citizen.