PANAJI
Goa’s intra-State power grid suffered nearly 20,000 outages in the 14 months from January last year to May this year, Power Minister Ramkrishna (Sudin) Dhavalikar has said.
A written reply by Dhavalikar in the recently concluded monsoon session of the Goa Legislative Assembly said the Electricity Department is taking measures to minimise power outages caused by falling of trees/ tree branches, line snapping and weather disturbances.
Some of the reasons for the outages Dhavalikar listed included incoming power supply failure due to the national grid failure which mostly happens along the 220KV API lines from Ambewadi, overhead line snapping of conductor, damage of poles due to falling trees, failure of insulator and transformer due to heavy rains and winds besides shutdowns availed for renovation and improvement of HT & LT lines from time to time.
The minister’s reply was to a query posed by AAP’s Benaulim MLA, Venzy Viegas who had asked for the number of power outages and the reasons why it happens.
Meanwhile, Margao’s Division XVI of the Electricity Department recorded the maximum number of power outages in these 14 months, a whopping 5,276 while Division XII at Xeldem reported the least at just four.
Division VI at Mapusa recorded 2,422 outages, Division VII in Curchorem had 2,254 while Division XI which caters to Vasco reported 1,680 blackouts in the same fourteen months.
Other areas which reported greater number of outages include division V of Bicholim (1,829 outages), Division IV of Margao (1477), Division X at Ponda (1,176) and Division XVII at Mapusa 1,585.
Responding to a supplementary from Viegas as to what steps the government was taking to improve the reliability of power supply across the State, Dhavalikar said the department was regularly carrying out “preventive maintenance” of the 220KV/110KV EHV & 33KV substations as well as the inter-State and intra-State lines.
High Tension and Low Tent/ LT are also being replaced and the capacity of power and distribution transformers is also being upgraded in synch with the growth in demand for power, he added.
Dhavalikar also said that 11 kV & 33KV overhead feeders and lines are in the process of being converted to underground cabling in different areas of the State which will minimise faults caused by falling of trees and branches, line snapping and weather disturbances.
