Angry villagers to gather near p'yat office, meet power dept officials today
MAPUSA
The scorching heat along with frequent power cuts has made living inside the houses in the popular beach village of Calangute unbearable.
Annoyed with the deteriorating power situation, locals have been complaining to the power department but apart from assurances nothing much happens even as the situation seems to be getting worse.
What is surprising, however, is that despite commissioning the new 33/11 KV sub-station at Arradi, Calangute, the coastal village has been experiencing power cuts almost every day.
While entire Calangute has been facing power outages, the ward of Gaura-vaddo has been facing the brunt of the problem.
“Power cuts have become a routine in the village. In this ward in particular, power goes off after every half hour. It is restored for a few minutes and then off it goes again. We are at our wits end. We have complained and even met the local MLA but nothing seems to be going right for us,” said Denzil D’Souza, a resident of Gaura-vaddo, Calangute, sounding exasperated.
According to another local, Aliexo Fernandes, frequent power cuts damaged his costly electric gadgets at home.
"We have been facing power cuts every 15 minutes which has damaged my television set costing Rs 25,000, an air condition unit worth Rs 30,000 and a water pump of Rs 15,000. Who is responsible for my loss?" said Fernandes, a resident of Khobra-vaddo, Calangute.
He appealed with the villagers to organise a meeting with the panchayat, electricity department and the power minister to discuss the issue.
Yet another villager, Narendra Raikar informed that they had had a power cut on Saturday (May 13) night which was not restored till late the next morning.
Some of the villages have now decided to gather at the Calangute village panchayat on Monday (May 15) and meet officials in the power department.
Home to a number of starred hotels and guesthouses, Calangute has been facing massive power outages especially in the summer season.
Calangute Sarpanch, Joseph Sequeria admitted that the whole village was facing power problems leading to a lot of frustration among the locals.
“People have been complaining to the electricity department but it appears the engineers are helpless. Some of the villagers approached me requesting to have a meeting with the department engineers. It's high time the department finds a way out to resolve the issue,” Sequeira said.
He denied a charge that the panchayat was refusing permission to the power department to dig up roads to lay underground cables in order to connect certain areas to the new sub-station at Arradi.
“I have recently spoken to the chief electrical engineer and even issued permission to the electricity department to dig up the road from the sub-station to Gaura-vaddo to lay the cables,” the sarpanch said.
He, however, said that the power department had dug up the road Boa Viagem to the sub-station while erecting the new sub-station but were yet to restore the road.
Attempts to get in touch with the electricity department were not successful as senior officials did not respond to calls made on their cell phones.
