MARGAO
On Tuesday evening, an SOS went to the Margao fire brigade regarding a group of people stranded in one of the lifts in the South Goa District Collectorate building. Fortunately, the panic stricken citizens heaved a sigh of relief as power supply was restored to the building around the same time.
Wednesday noon witnessed an unusual situation in the Collectorate building as power failure came to haunt the officials and the visitors alike “ almost all the lifts in the Collectorate were shutdown during lunch break. The reason cited by none other than the District Collector Anjali Sehrawat was to give “rest” to the generator, which has been in continuous use since the last several days due to frequent tripping of the power supply.
Constant power failures in the District Collectorate building have once again brought to the fore the maintenance of the imposing building, which has been craving for attention in recent months.
When the media questioned the District Collector to shed light on the power interruptions in the building, Sehrawat attributed the situation on Tuesday to some technical fault in the generator, besides low voltage from the low end, resulting in the electric panel getting tripped.
“Today, the low voltage problem was not there, but there was some technical difficulty resulting in the power fluctuation,” she added.
When asked to shed light on the building maintenance, the Collector said the overall maintenance of has now been handed over to the PWD. However, she hastened to add that certain technical aspects are yet to be rectified by the Goa State Infrastructure Development Corporation, which has been looking after the building maintenance from day one.
“The PWD, electrical division and the GSIDC have been asked to liaison to improve the power situation in the building,” the Collector said, while pointing out that she has made a report to the government in strong terms on the maintenance front.
While exuding confidence that things will see a turn around by evening, the Collector said a notice was circulated in the offices housed in the Collectorate building that all the lifts will be shut down on Wednesday noon.
“The shutdown in the lifts was taken during the lunch break when the presence of members of the public has been minimum. We did the shut down after issuing advance notice to all the departments functioning in the building,” she added.
Citizens visiting the building seem to have lost faith in the lift facility as evident by the fact that they prefer to walk upstairs.
