OLD GOA
It was only on Tuesday night that power was restored to a housing complex in Chimbel and that too after going without power for more than 48 hours.
However, for residents of the complex, their joy was short-lived as smoke started billowing out of the transformer distributing power to the housing complex.
“It’s not been even 12 hours since power was restored to our complex, which has over 100 flats, and smoke started billowing out of the transformer in the early morning of Wednesday,” a resident Jayesh Chodankar informed The Goan.
“There was leakage in the transformer which resulted in the smoke billowing out at around 6.30 am and it was only around 9.30 am that the power department staff came and switched off the transformer,” stated a local Pravin Chopdecar, who said that he had informed the power staff, on Tuesday night itself, that the transformer needed immediate replacement.
“I had allayed fears that the transformer was broken and needs immediate replacement. I had also expressed fear that it would not last for long before it catches fire and that’s exactly what happened,” Chopdecar opined.
Some residents of the complex said that they are facing a water shortage as they cannot pump water into the tanks due to power outage.
Meanwhile, the electricity department informed that they will replace a 200 KV transformer at Goulebhat and the mobile transformer installed there will be used for supplying power to the housing complex.
At the time of going to the press, the power department staff had already replaced the 200 KV transformer at Goulebhat and were in the process of shifting the mobile transformer to the housing complex, an operation which is likely to take some time.
St Cruz MLA Tony Fernandes was personally supervising the work of restoring power to the housing complex.
