Has the Chief Minister of Goa Manohar Parrikar hinted at a hike in electricity tariff? Government servants, he claimed, enjoyed around 77 per cent rise in salaries over a period of time while power tariff continued to remain constant. The point here is that comparisons cannot be drawn to salaries, for the fact that inflation has gone up drastically vis-a-vis the high standards of living in the background.
Goa’s electricity scenario has however remained grim over the past 25 years, just like the porous water supply. Successive governments, despite periodic promises, have failed to raise the required distribution infrastructure, and going by ailing power minister Pandurang Madkaikar’s word, it would only take another 3 years to put it on track. This is why number crunching on allocations is seen with skepticism.
It is a sheer humiliation to those in power to admit that nothing moved on the electricity front in the last two and a half decades. The admission by the power minister itself is enough of an indicator that Goans were merely powered by the number-crunching on allocations with no significant changes on the ground. If the then power minister Milind Naik announced in 2014 of underground cabling of 11 kv lines in all major towns, we now have the CM Manohar Parrikar issuing a work order of Rs 113 crore for underground cabling and a major overhaul of the electricity infrastructure with a Rs 410 crore capital infusion. But again, there are no deadlines put on these jobs and for now it appears to be yet another endless wait.
The CM’s contention of households exceeding load limits putting additional pressure on transformers appears genuine. There are numerous households where power is tapped by-passing electricity metres ,while others have been flagrantly violating the cap on domestic power.
Having said this, what is the power department doing? This only means that the department, which includes the junior engineers and assistant engineers, has failed in its duties to control the power distribution. Unless there is ground-level control, power thefts will continue to go unchecked causing huge financial losses to the treasury and also burdening the already crippled infrastructure. While talking of a major power boost, the government must also factor in the ground realities and hold its officers and engineers accountable. For now, there are no house inspections done to check power consumption and households are allowed to go freewheeling on power use.
The common man may heave a sigh of relief over government’s power plans, but would wait in hope for simplifying payments of public utility bills. Government’s digital gateway is still to stabilize and the locals are yet to be conversant with the nuances of online payments. It would be prudent to open parallel payment channels rather than restricting the mode of payments to a few banks. While government continues to burn its midnight oil on the promised power upgrade, let Goans have at least an ease of making payments.
