PANAJI
A tug-of-war seems to have broken out between the Electricity Department and the Public Works Department over the maintenance of lights along the national highways.
A number of accidents in recent days have been attributed to the non-functioning of lights and dark patches along the highways.
Despite several complaints, authorities have not taken note and instead seem to pass the buck.
Power Minister Sudin Dhavalikar says responsibility of maintaining the electrical fixtures along newly constructed highways lies with the Public Works Department.
“The responsibility lies with the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI). Once the national highway is built, it is their responsibility to maintain it for a period of five years. The NHAI then needs to hand over the responsibility to the Power Department", Dhavalikar said.
The minister says, this right of handing over the responsibility is not done… so the Power Department cannot take up the responsibility of maintaining the lights.
“The Power Department will get the right to maintain lights along highways only if PWD hands over the responsibility”, Dhavalikar said adding his department is not to be blamed for the mishaps due to dark spots along the highways.
When questioned further, Dhavalikar shot back, “ask the PWD about it, not me”.
PWD Minister Nilesh Cabral who was the power minister during his previous tenure, however, begged to differ saying last time when I was incharge of the power portfolio, I personally took interest in the maintenance of lights along the highways.
“The lights along the Varnapuri-Airport highway were maintained by the power department”, he said.
He, however agreed with Dhavalikar saying, wherever work is going on, PWD has to maintain the lights along the highways.
"PWD is responsible to maintain the lights wherever work is going. Once the work is complete we will hand over the maintenance to the power department", Cabral said.
Cabral also said there is a mechanical electrical wing in the PWD. “We have called a meeting and wherever lights are non-functional we will repair them and later hand over the responsibility to the power department for maintenance in future, he said.
Cabral also assured that a monitoring mechanism would be put in place to check the functionality of lights along the highway.
