Goa: No power for 21 hours to parts of Vasco as gas line workers damage cable

VASCO/PANAJI: In yet another incident of an underground cable getting punctured, Vasco, Baina, Mangor, Sada, Varunapuri, Gandhi Nagar and Shantinagar went without power supply for around 21 hours on Thursday after a gas pipeline contractor accidentally damaged three 33kV underground cables supplying electricity to Vasco and surrounding areas.
Vasco electricity department assistant engineer Sanjeev Mashelkar said three underground cables were damaged by an underground gas pipeline contractor, near Borges building in Vasco, while they were digging work for laying the pipeline.
The department filed a police complaint and said the gas pipeline contractor was instructed to do cable detection and only after that to continue digging work to avoid further accidents, Mashelkar said.
The blackout affected around 40,000 citizens as the two 33kV cables in addition to a spare/backup cable which supplies electricity to Harbour and Bogda substations were punctured.
“We would have immediately provided alternate supply, but the third cable that was kept as spare was also punctured by the contractor and we were left helpless,” a power department staffer said.
A similar blackout occurred last month in Panaji when digging resulted in puncturing of underground power cables.
There have been several instances of the power department’s costly underground infrastructure getting damaged by contractors carrying out various works over the past few years, putting the department and inconveniencing thousands of citizens and businesses.
“The electricity department was not informed about the work by the contractor. Horizontal drilling work was taking place at midnight when our three cables got punctured,” executive engineer Canuto Godinho said.
“Somehow we managed to supply electricity to some areas in Vasco through overhead lines but people in other areas suffered,” he said.
A similar incident by the same contractor took place recently at Chicalim, following which the department had asked the contractor to keep them informed about any digging work.
“We were not informed. We would have shown them the path of the cable,” Godinho said.
Joining punctured underground cables is a time consuming and costly operation. The work costs between Rs 5 and 10 lakh to join a single damaged cable and the entire operation of finding the fault, digging up the area and pulling out the cable, cutting and then joining takes around 8 hours, officials said.
But even 20 hours later on Thursday many citizens in the area were still in the dark with not even one cable joining work completed. Although the cable was punctured around 1am, the specialised contractor could begin full-fledged work only at 7am.
Domestic users were given preference over commercial ones when the department tried to provide alternate supply.
Rain hampered the work and a small tent had to be set up.
“Despite reminders and letters, the digging was carried out without informing us causing huge loss to consumers and the government,” a department engineer said.
“All utilities should coordinate with each other otherwise this will keep repeating. There’s no discipline in utilities and everyone thinks it’s their right to dig the road. In that case departments are helpless and have to fight, and it is the public who has to bear the brunt of it all,” a Vasco-based engineer said.
“An order with a strict standing instruction should be issued to all utilities to adhere to this. They must obtain an NOC from the department before digging the road,” the engineer added.
The road is the only access where all the cables are laid and the state doesn't have any dedicated trenches for cables.