Sarthak Kanjilal
Port Blair, July 17: The Electricity Department, Port Blair is hopeful to tame the ghost of power cut by the end of July 2012. At present people of these islands are reeling under severe power crisis, which has resulted in one and a half hour long power cut everyday.
But highly placed sources in electricity department confirmed that by July end though the department will be able to reduce the duration of power cuts but to end the power crisis the Department would need atleast two more months.
When contacted the Executive Engineer (HQ), Electricity Department, Mr. R. P. Singh told Andaman Sheekha that as one of the 5MW DG sets of SPCL is having some problems in its generator, a lead inside the DG set got burnt. It’s not a big problem but the SPCL is waiting for the instruments and equipments which have already reached Chennai.
He said that the shortage in power supply is also because of the fact that a 2.5 MW DG set of Chatham is under overhauling.
“Most probably both the DG sets will be operational by the end of this month and the people of these islands will get a relaxation of atleast one hour,” he added.
He added that the department has already placed an order for supply of 10 MW power to a private party, another 5MW DG set of SPCL is under repair.
“New Bharat still have to provide 2MW power for which they are failing since a long time for some unknown reasons. Anyhow we have charged penalty against that but as per the norms the penalty can be charged only for some weeks only, after that we cannot charge penalty, now when they will make the 2MW DG sets operational may be one year, six months, we cannot do anything. As soon as we will get this 17 MW power, all the power cut problems of the islands will be resolved,” Mr. Singh added.
