Underground cabling of the 33KV and 11KV lines will help beat the problems thrown up by snapping of overhead conductors due to tree fall because of the monsoon furyPANAJI: As Goa and South Goa in particular reeled under prolonged and multiple power outages, Power Minister Nilesh Cabral on Thursday sought to blame it on the weather and 100 per-cent failure of incoming supply from the 33KVA lines through Karnataka.
- Nilesh Cabral
Cabral said, the nearly 90 megawatts of power supplied to Goa from the Southern Grid failed intermittently on Wednesday and continually since around 9 am on Thursday. It was yet to be restored until late evening and most of South Goa. "The whole of South Goa was affected and we are managing by diverting power from the Ponda sub-station which is fed by the western grid through Maharashtra," Cabral said, while addressing a press conference at the Vidyut Bhavan along with a team of top engineers including the officiating Chief Electrical Engineer Reshma Mathew.
Engineers and subordinate field staff of the department are working round-the-clock to mend the faults across Goa, Cabral added.
He said the nearly 80-kilometer 33KVA lines which brings in supply to the Xeldem Sub-Station from the southern grid via karnataka meanders through thick forests where challenges posed by terrain makes it difficult to first locate and then repair faults.
Nearly 40 kilometers of the lines lie on the Karnataka side and the balance half in Goa's territory but of the nearly 90 interruptions in the last six months, as many as 83 were on account of faults on the neighbouring State's territory and just nine were in the State, Cabral said.
Also, the 11KV transmission lines within Goa are overhead and tend to snap in the current inclement weather conditions due to uprooted trees falling on the conductors, he said.
South Goa is catered to by three 33KVA sub-stations at Ponda, Verna and Xeldem. With power coming in to Xeldem failing, as claimed by the minister, the whole load of supply to South Goa falls on the Ponda and Verna substations leading to the frequent and prolonged outages faced by the people over the last couple of days.
The power minister said, in the next 10 days the department will work on a temporary arrangement by which the Southern Region incoming lines will be disengaged at Darbandora and instead connected to the Western Region lines from Ponda since they are more reliable.
"This way South Goa will be supplied more reliable power," Cabral said, adding however, that it will take at least 10 days to put the arrangement in place.
For the long term meanwhile, the government is planning to go in for underground cabling of all the 33KV lines (which transmit power from the national grids) and 11KV lines (which transmit power from one substation to another within Goa). The plan will entail massive financial implications and the department is currently working on the estimates and preparing the modalities of the tendering process.
"Underground cabling of the 33KV and 11KV lines will help beat the problems thrown up by snapping of overhead conductors due to tree fall because of the monsoon fury. Tendering will begin within the next two months," Cabral said.
Canral who was accompanied by the Chief Electrical Engineer Reshma Mathew also listed several transmission and distribution infrastructure upgradation works which are currently in progress and in various stages of completion which he claimed will vastly improve the overall quality of supply in both North and South Goa.
