Power failure for hrs as tower collapses on live transmission line

Ranchi: An abandoned transmission tower, erected by Abhijeet Group between 2006 and 2012, collapsed on the live transmission lines in the early hours of Thursday, causing widespread outages at Lohardaga and parts of adjoining Ranchi district. Power supplies have since been restored.
Power officials pointed out that the transmission towers and overhead power lines, erected by Abhijeet Group to evacuate power from their upcoming thermal power plant at Chandwa in Latehar district, were lying in an abandoned state over the past several years and thieves have been enjoying a virtual field day. They had cut away vital support members of the towers, which finally led to the collapse of the tower on Thursday night.
They added that the abandoned transmission towers and lines that stretch from Tandwa in Chatra district to Namkum in Ranchi district continue to pose a public threat.
“As the tower collapsed, a heavy 400KV conductor fell on the live transmission line of Jharkhand Urja Sancharan Nigam Ltd. (JUSNL), at a crossover point of the Abhijeet Group and JUSNL lines, causing power supply lines to snap. JUSNL patrolling parties located the accident site and restoration work was taken up soon after,” Mukesh Kumar Singh, general manager of transmission zone 1 of the state-owned JUSNL, told TOI.
The location of the accident site is around 60km away from Lohardaga town and 5km to 6km from Itki in Ranchi district. Power supplies to the railway lines that connect Ranchi and Tori were being fed through alternate source from Gumla to ensure normal rail operations.
“JUSNL does not have the requisite authority to ensure security of transmission towers and power lines that do not belong to us. Our power systems are fully automated that enable us to identify faults and initiate swift corrective actions,” K K Verma, JUSNL’s managing director, told TOI.
Sources revealed that the now defunct Abhijeet Group had begun work on setting up a 1080MW thermal power plant at Chandwa in Latehar district in 2006 after the company signed an MoU with Jharkhand government. All the four units, each of 270MW capacity, were to have been commissioned in 2013. However, after the Coalgate scam erupted in 2012, the Chittarpur coal block in Jharkhand, which was allocated to the Abhijeet Group, was delisted, stalling work completely on the Chandwa power plant project. Officials said that since then, the transmission towers and power lines erected by the company for evacuation of power from the proposed Chandwa power plant have been lying in an abandoned state.