The editorial ‘778 power outages daily in 2024. Can Goa see light finally?’ (TGE, June 25), has hit the nail on the head and brilliantly exposed the failure of the Goa government to provide a reliable and sustainable power supply to the state, even after spending crores of rupees on infrastructure work. The editorial has also rightly stated that “distribution failures, transformer breakdowns, and grid faults point to an ageing infrastructure that has not been sufficiently modernised” to take on additional loads during peak demands, to the tune of over 200 MW.
Over six decades have passed and we have unfortunately missed the wood for the trees, still struggling with underground cabling works that have almost been completed and are irrelevant today, without any improvement to the daily power supply and outages witnessed. Undoubtedly, a case of poor planning and a diversionary tactic by the Power Department, by any reckoning, even as consumers are put to great hardship with an additional burden of increase in power tariffs. Finally, the latest diversionary move and cover-up involving crores of rupees is the installation of smart meters that will hardly serve any useful purpose for an outdated power network.
