Fixing electricity issues could have never been so easy. For Goans facing frequent power outages, this could be a thing of the past, if we are to believe the newly-inducted Power Minister’s new mantra. He has come up with a new invention in what appears the best thing since sliced bread. SMS your electricity problem to Cabral on his personal cellphone number 9822103292 with the complainant’s name, address and phone number, and voila, the power minister assures ‘light’.
Shocked? This could well be an OMG moment for the thousands of aggrieved citizens who are virtually powerless against power cuts. Nilesh’s attempt to reach out to the lakhs of citizens who have been hit by erratic power is nothing
but a ‘power-packed’ gimmick and a popularity stunt. The last time, and the only time, when Goa heard of a power minister who attended calls of citizens over power failures was during the tenure of Margao MLA Digambar Kamat from late 1999 to mid-2007.
With a crippled and outdated distribution network, Goa has been witnessing blackouts on a daily basis, some of which span across an entire taluka and others lasting for nearly a week. The electricity situation continues to remain grim and the promise of uninterrupted power supply appears completely far-fetched.
Major reforms are required in the power sector with a complete overhaul of infrastructure and such patchwork in the form of SMS service will not help. When the world is making rapid strides with the latest technological developments, Goa is still struggling to fix a fuse. Goans have to deal with a power sector which is always crawling and a government which is currently in a state of flux. A complete failure on the power front was best explained by former power minister Pandurang Madkaikar, a few months before he was hospitalized.
Cabral’s 24-hour work attitude must be commended, but is his manpower, including the AEs and JEs, tuned to working in such kind of regimen? Is our problem only to do with work lethargy? If the Power Minister is trying to broker a solution making himself a middlemen, then this is going nowhere. Goa cannot afford to have a Power Minister who is engaged full-time in trouble-shooting electricity issues “ remember Goa’s power problems are round the clock.
We only hope that PWD Minister Sudin Dhavalikar is not inspired by this SMS concept to try his hand on a texting formula to solve the frequent water crisis. Even at the time of writing this, Bardez and parts of Pernem and Bicholim are left high and dry for the second successive day.
Instead of making ministers as mediators, a help desk networked with the workforce could have gone a long way to redress issues. We need immediate infrastructure upgrades. Power and water failures are major issues that the state is grappling with and a one-man show texting service can’t be the solution.
