Sheekha Bureau
Port Blair, May 24: In the month of April 2018 the Electricity Department had promised to completely eradicate power cuts at least from South Andaman region.
“The power shortage will be fully eradicated after the commissioning of 50% capacity of the 10 MW power plant by mid-May, 2018 being established through NTPC,” back then a press release from Electricity Department had said but to the utter dismay of public even in the last month of May, people of Port Blair city are witnessing indiscriminate power cuts.
The saddest part is that no schedule for these load shedding are issued in press despite clear cut orders of Raj Niwas that there should not be any power load shedding without publishing proper schedule in local newspapers.
Worst suffers are people of Garacharma area where that is more than four hour long load shedding since last three days and no intimation regarding the power cuts were given to public. When Andaman Sheekha called up the Parthergudda Site office, the staffs of Electricity Department informed that the power cut is because of National Highway Works. One wonders why the Electricity Department can’t issue a press release for such works, which are well planned in advance.
When contacted a senior officer of Electricity Department said that presently due to fault in 10 MW engine of private party, there are some power cuts but the department did not issue any schedule, as the department was assessing the fault and only based on the assessments, the department will issue power cut press note, if required.
Sadly the Department, which claims to eradicate power cuts completely by Mid Day is unable to keep some DG sets, in standby, to deal with minor faults in some engines. Public questions that in modern age of containerized DG set, why can’t Electricity department keep 1MW or 2MW containerized DG sets or similar DG Sets ready, as standby, to deal with any major DG set failures. Hope the power bosses are listening.
