Had No Knowledge Of Work: Chief Engineer

PANAJI: Tiswadi residents faced a 22-hour power cut from 6am on Sunday to 4am on Monday as the power minister directed the department to facilitate the shifting of a high-tension line running across a builder's property on the Kadamba plateau. But this 'builder service' was presented to the public vaguely as ‘planned power shutdown for shifting of 110KV line at Kadamba plateau’. The high tension power lines were preventing the builder from carrying out construction work.
Even as power minister Pandurang Madkaikar denied allegations that the power shutdown was undertaken for the shifting of a power line to benefit a builder, the electricity department, on Monday, admitted that the shutdown was carried out primarily at the request of the builder.

“The request to shift lines was made two-and-a-half-years ago by the developer. Any consumer can ask to shift lines at his own cost, but has to pay 15% supervisory charges to the department,” chief electrical engineer N N Reddy told reporters on Monday, while denying knowledge about the shutdown.

He said the builder spent around Rs 4 crore to carry out the work.

Reddy said no maintenance of the department’s infrastructure had been carried out over the past two to three years. Since the high tension 110KV line from Tivim to Kadamba Plateau was shutdown, maintenance work was carried out at Patto, Panaji, as a secondary task, he added.

Department officials tried to convince irate consumers that the realigning was also done to benefit the government’s proposed solid waste management plant, which sits adjacent to the builder’s property.

Executive engineer Kadamba plateau Mayur Hede told reporters that no such request from the government for the proposed solid waste management plant was received by the electricity department.

The department’s shutdown notice stated that there would be restricted power for 12 hours, from 6am to 6pm on Sunday.

The electricity department supervised the realignment work carried out by the builder’s contractor. The delay was caused when one of the two specialised crimping machines for conductors, brought in by the builder’s contractor to realign the 1.7-km high tension power line, failed on Sunday morning. “The two crimping machines were specially brought to Goa by the contractors (builder’s) to carry out the work. When one gave way, the contractor had to rely on only one crimping machine and this delayed the entire operation. When it turned dark, workers couldn’t work with the same efficiency as they did during the day,” a source said.

The situation worsened when the alternate power arrangements made by the department to supply power from the Porvorim substation also failed along with its feeders.

Consumers vented their ire, even calling up power minister Pandurang Madkaikar in the wee hours of Monday morning looking for answers, but to no avail.

Some drew comparisons with lesser developed and larger states that manage their power more efficiently.

“At a time when our Prime Minister is working overtime to improve the power situation across the country, the situation in Goa, and more so in the capital city, was appalling. Even in UP, which used to have incessant power cuts earlier, the situation is nowhere as bad as to what we faced on Sunday. To add to my troubles, my elderly parents are visiting and one of them has just gone through a surgery. I shudder at the thought of days ahead,” a resident of Model Legacy in Taleigao told TOI.

Consumers received no answers from department’s staff, who stopped taking calls from consumers leaving them all the more infuriated.

Andrea Pereira from St Cruz said her son spent half the night sleeping in the car with the air conditioner turned on and was able to get only four hours of sound sleep before he had to wake up to go to school. “Nobody had answers for when the power supply would be restored. Schools in Panaji should have been shut on Monday due to the inconvenience caused to children,” she told TOI.

Mario Fernandes travelled to Panaji along with his aged mother for a scheduled angioplasty on Sunday, but was turned down by the private hospital because of the power shutdown. “I took her on an empty stomach to the hospital for the procedure, but I was asked to return on Monday. The worst part is that the government didn’t come clear on the reason for the shutdown and the delay. They stated the power would resume at 6pm, but they betrayed our trust,” he told TOI.