MARGAO
Even as the blame game continued between the Margao Municipal Council and the Electricity Department over the cause behind Friday’s fire incident, an inspection of the dump during the weekend has revealed that the 13-metre 33kV high tension poles dotting along the dump are almost buried under the municipal waste.
That’s not all. It’s now two years since the electricity department had written a letter to the civic body on December 10, 2019, seeking willingness of the Margao Municipal Council on shifting the 33kV line in the wake of the fire incident that year.
While City Fathers and Municipal babus have been insisting since Friday that the 33kV line needs to be shifted to avert fire mishaps at Sonsodo, none of the officials was willing to shed light on the letter written by the Assistant Engineer, Electricity Carlos Fernandes.
In the letter, Carlos had drawn the attention of the Margao Municipal Chief Officer to the decision to shift the overhead 33kV line and the interlinking line to be converted with three core 400 Sqmm XLPE armoured cable.
Carlos told the media at the Sonsodo site along with Executive Engineer Rajiv Samant that the proposed shifting of the overhead 33kV line was estimated to cost over Rs 50 lakh.
“The proposal did not move forward since the MMC is yet to give the willingness letter”, Carlos said.
While the debate rages whether the overhead line is the cause behind Friday’s fire incident or that the conductor snapped after a fire at the dump, the Municipal officials were stared with a pertinent question as to how come the 13-metre 33kV high tension poles are almost buried under the waste dumped by the civic body.
In fact, electricity officials were trying to impress upon the civic officials and councillors that the municipality should at least avoid dumping waste along the stretch of the overhead line.
“Since the proposed shifting of the line may take time as it requires the willingness letter from the civic body, we have impressed upon the Municipal officials to at least create a no-waste corridor below the 33kV line to avert any future accidents”, Samant informed.
He added: “At present, we can only see only three meters of the 13-metre line, while the remaining portion is buried under the waste. We have urged the civic officials to clear the dump under the line and create a waste-free corridor”.
As a temporary arrangement, the electricity department has now decided to raise the height of the high tension poles from 13 metres to 18 metres along the Sonsodo stretch.
Friday’s fire incident has also brought to the fore the moot question of whether all’s not well at Sonsodo given the huge amount of dry waste that was engulfed in the fire near the baling shed.
“Even assuming for a moment that the 33kV line was responsible for the fire, but can the MMC escape the blame for not treating the tons of dry waste dumped near the baling shed. The MMC should explain how come the thermocol waste had resembled a dump near the baling shed”, officials said.
