PANAJI
Despite the BJP-led government's claim to have spent over Rs 5000 crore in the last two years, to ensure that better power reaches its consumers, the data draws a grim picture. In 2024-25, on an average, 778 complaints in a day over power outages were received by the State Electricity department.
The report submitted to the Joint Electricity Regulatory Commission (JERC) on the ‘Performance Levels for Guaranteed Standards’, reveals that in the last financial year, the Electricity Department received a whopping 2,84,244 complaints pertaining to power failures including scheduled outages. Apart from this, there were more 50,000 complaints related to faulty meters, errors in billing, etc.
Of these 2,84,244 complaints of power failure, 77.33 per cent outages were due to fuse blown out or snapping of service lines while another 12 per cent were as a result of fault in distribution lines and 4 per cent was due to failure of high tension lines. The electricity crisis was also due to breakdown of underground cables, problems in grid sub-stations and transformers, fluctuations, distribution failure, etc.
In that one year, the Department had scheduled 5,678 power shutdowns.
In the very first quarter of the last fiscal -- April-June, 2024 -- the peak summer season saw the department receiving 79,053 complaints from the consumers with regards to power outages, fluctuations, etc. The number was on a higher side during the monsoon -- 91,949 from July to September -- this could be owing to damage to electrical poles and cables due to tree felling, heavy winds, etc.
The third and the fourth quarter saw a marginal decline in the total number of complaints. While 61,725 consumers raised their grievances from October to December, 51,517 complaints were filed from January to March, 2025.
Power Minister Ramakrishna Dhavalikar had said that the Electricity Department has tendered works worth Rs 5,000 crore to ensure better power reaches consumers in the last two years and the works include the upgrading of substations and transformers, installation of new transformers, and other works apart from underground cabling.
In its Business Plan for the financial years 2025-30, the Department is planning an infrastructure upgrade worth Rs 6,650 crores including modernisation of transformers, substations, and underground cabling.
The State’s power demand at present is 540 megawatt per day and it touches 750 megawatts per day during the peak hour.
