MARGAO
He promised to visit Margao every month and will attend the pre-monsoon meeting with MLAs from down South in the District Collectorate on May 2.
Madkaikar made his presence felt at the Aquem Power House on Wednesday morning, taking a round of the staff and inspecting the stores and sub-station to obtain a first-hand experience of the ground reality at Margao.
“I have come here to ensure that the hardships faced by the consumers are mitigated, and not to see the staff attendance. I have told the officials to attend promptly to complaints of late bills, inflated bills and correction of bills. I have issued instructions to see that bills are issued every month. Earlier the bills were printed at GEL, now the work has been taken over by the department,” he said.
Taking note of the shortage of basic electrical supplies such as conductors and poles, Madkaikar said that attempts will be made to tide over the shortage. “The department will accord utmost priority for the procurement of conductors, poles, wires, meters, etc. Things should fall in place within 10 days,” he said.
When his attention was drawn to the frequent power failures in Salcete taluka, he urged people to dial 1912 since the information is automatically relayed to the junior engineer concerned. When pointed out that the electricity department has no fault finding machine to detect underground cable faults, Madkaikar reminded that the contractors are bound to carry out repairs during the warranty period. “There may be some teething problems associated with underground cabling, but all these will be resolved. The department does not interfere with the underground cabling contractors,” he added.
To another question on the power outages faced by the Chadwaddo residents of Davorlim village, Madkaikar said the department has held discussions with KRC officials, adding that a solution will be found to the problem soon.
On LED street illumination, the Power Minister said that work on installing LED lights is underway in all the 40 constituencies, adding that work is expected to be completed by May-end.
“We have new MLAs and Ministers and they want the department to cover their constituencies as early as possible. There’s one contractor and 55 teams on the job, and we expect the job to be completed by May,” he added.
