PANAJI
It is that time of the year when summer has set in and all the top honchos at the Goa electricity department head to the drawing room to chalk out plans and schedules for pre-arranged power supply shutdowns to enable the quintessential maintenance work on the State-wide grid before the monsoon.
On Sunday, a large part of South Goa will go without power for about 6-7 hours from 7 am to 1 pm. The whole of Canacona-Sanguem-Quepem talukas and significant parts Dharbandora, Ponda and Salcete talukas will be affected by the planned shutdown.
Assistant Engineer, Milind Desai told The Goan that both the Extra High Voltage (EHV) 220 KV stations at Xeldem and Cuncolim, besides the 110KV sub-station at Verna will be shut down.
Major upgradation work was carried out at all these major power stations and the final work to bring the upgraded infrastructure on stream into the grid necessitates the shutdown, he said.
Desai, who is attached to the office of the Chief Electrical Engineer, Stephen Fernandes, also said work will also simultaneously be carried out at the 33 KV step-down substations, including maintenance of circuit breakers and isolators.
Meanwhile, schedules for such planned power shutdowns to carry out pre-monsoon work on the intra-State grid in other regions of Goa including in North Goa have not yet been finalised.
These maintenance works are necessary to ensure that the major portions of the grid are serviced and intact to weather the 3-4 months of monsoon season as working on the grid in inclement weather during the rains is next to impossible.
