Sankhali: In yet another tragic death involving a worker of electricity department, a lineman was electrocuted while he had climbed up a pole to undertake repair work at Valshi, Bicholim on Friday morning. The name of the deceased was disclosed as Manoj Zambaulikar (34), a resident of Gaonkarwada- Piligao.
Enraged villagers slammed the electricity department and protested against shifting of the body to hospital.
They demanded presence of the officials concerned at the site and when they arrived, accompanied by the police, they were confronted and asked as to who was to be blamed for the death of the lineman.
After two hours of the confrontation, the body was finally shifted to hospital for postmortem. This is the third such incident in the past few years in Bicholim taluka, it is learnt.
The villagers and the family of the deceased demanded a thorough investigation into the death and punishment for the one responsible for it.
As per information available, the lineman had joined the job two years back and has a six-month-old daughter.
Meanwhile, the electricity department said that the death was due to a fault of an invertor of a private establishment nearby. Inquiry revealed that 220 volt power supply from the faulty invertor reached the neutral wire and, when he touched it, he died immediately, said an official.
Oppn demands Sudin’s resignation
Margao: Coming down severely on the state government over the death of a linesman of the power department in Bicholim on Friday, the opposition, including the INDIA bloc’s North Goa candidate Ramakant Khalap and South Goa candidate Viriato Fernandes, demanded the resignation of the power minister Ramkrishna ‘Sudin’ Dhavalikar, alleging “failure to provide safety and security to department staff”.
“In the past five years, more than 70 people have lost their lives due to electrocution. Additionally, 25-30 animals have also died due to electric shocks,” said Khalap.
The government, Fernandes said, spent almost Rs 12,000 crore on maintenance and improvisation of the power distribution system in Goa in the last five years, yet power outages continue to plague the citizens.
“The power department has become a big scam. There are pending recoveries of Rs 1,400 crores from industrial, commercial, and government defaulters, but the government is only targeting the poor domestic consumers,” he said.