PANAJI
Power Minister Pandurang Madkaikar urged the people of Cuncolim not to take to the streets and block the highway over the issue of frequent power cuts on Saturday, even as he asserted that the protest was being organised by their MLA for political mileage and free publicity.
Addressing a press conference, Madkaikar said that it was not only Cuncolim, but the entire state that has been suffering on account of power cuts over the last two months. Unless the ageing power infrastructure is toned up power cuts are bound to happen, he added. “I have replied to their memorandum that the works on improving the power infrastructure are at the final tendering stages. People from several other places in the state are facing power cuts but they have called on me and we have discussed issues across the table. In this case, the MLA didn’t call on me even once,” Madkaikar said.
“You have to follow up on the issues. Raising it in the assembly is not enough,” Madkaikar said, urging the people not to “fall for the publicity stunt that was the roadblock.”
He claimed that the longest power cut in Cuncolim lasted four hours but other than that all the power cuts were less than half an hour with most lasting around ten minutes.
“It is not only Cuncolim, the whole state is suffering,” he said. He said that the work was delayed because the proposals sent by the previous MLA Rajan Naik were tendered four times, but because there was only one bidder the work was not awarded.
Madkaikar blamed the constant power outages on various issues including ageing infrastructure, low hanging branches, digging works which cut the underground cables as well as transformer failure which he said was the cause of many power failures.
Madkaikar said that the infrastructure upgrades that he was putting in place would last “for the next 25 years.”
