Irked by power outages, delays in restoring supply
Residents of Coldem-Telaulim confronted power officials over the power outages and the delay in the installation of the sanctioned power transformer.
MARGAO
Power consumers of Coldem ward of Telaulim village on Thursday sat on a dharna in front of the Aquem Power House to protest over the inordinate delay in installing a power transformer and to mitigate the hardships due to frequent power outages.
The delegation served a 24-hour deadline on Assistant Engineer, Sharad Naik to fix the issue and have threatened to shut the entrance to the Aquem power House.
Led by social activist Pratima Coutinho, the delegation of residents questioned the Assistant engineer over the huge delay in installing the power transformer, saying the people have been only given empty promises by the department over the years.
They demanded to know why work on the installation of the power transformer has not started till date when the local residents have cooperated by providing space for the project.
What triggered protests by the Coldem residents is the power outages witnessed in the area in the last few days and the delay in restoring power supply.
Naik explained that the department had tendered the work of installing the power transformer, but got delayed due to intervening election code of conduct in view of the Ponda bye-poll. “The department had tendered the work. The work order could not be issued for want of expenditure sanction in view of the election code”, he said.
While the delegation demanded an assurance from the Assistant power engineer that the work order would be issued immediately, Naik only assured the people that he would meet electricity higher ups on Friday to ascertain the status of the proposal.
Pratima has warned that she would take a morcha to the Power House on Friday if there is no assurance of installing a transformer in Coldem ward within 24 hours.
