John Wilbert &Vikramaditya
Port Blair, Dec 23: Hundreds of residents of Shyam Nagar and Govind Nagar and adjoining areas of Swaraj Dweep organized a massive protest in front of the Electricity Power House of Swaraj Dweep yesterday evening at around 07:30 PM, protesting against indiscriminate power cuts. As per report, the residents of these regions gathered and shouted slogans against the Electricity Department.
According to villagers, since 16 Dec 2022 they are witnessing continuous power cuts of two to three hours after gaps of some hours. “It is becoming intolerable. Tourism sector is the worst hit because this is the peak season for Tourism,” said a villager of Swaraj Dweep.
Later the Police officials of Swaraj Dweep and Official of Electricity department and other Officers of the areas reached the spot tried to convince the villagers but fuming residents continued the protest.
Mr. Ajit Kumar Roy Pradhan of Govind Nagar Panchayat said that the situation is pathetic and people are suffering heavily because of power outages due to a huge gap between demand and supply. Due to the power crisis villagers and tourists are equally suffering, he added.
Further, Mr. Alok Mridha Pradhan of Shyam Nagar Panchayat said that a day before yesterday he along with some other residents met the Secretary Power at Port Blair and demanded to resolve the issue.
Mr. Mridha alleged that DG sets installed in Swaraj Dweep are unable to meet the power requirements of the Island due to increase in Tourist inflow. He added that the private hiring company has two DG sets but only one is providing services and the other DG Set, which was installed a couple of months ago, is still unoperational because its agreement was not signed by the administration.
He claimed that if the second DG set starts functioning then most of the problem will automatically be resolved.
“At present Swaraj Dweep is witnessing a good tourist footfall but the power outages are causing a lot of distress to the tourists, especially at budget and mid-segment hotels. Although some hotels have backup generators most of the other small hotels do not provide back-up power and hence tourists suffer heavy inconvenience,” he added.
When Andaman Sheekha contacted a senior official of the Electricity Department of Swaraj Dweep the official said that the power crisis was due to failure of one DG set out of four functional DG Sets ( One private and three government run). The official added that the problem was with the switch board and the information regarding that has been given to the Port Blair head office after which this morning technical team Swaraj Dweep reached the Island and began repair works.
