Sanguem, Rivona and Canacona in South Goa have been the worst affected this week by incessant rain and tasteful winds in terms of damage to the electricity infrastructure.
Torrential rain over the past two days has resulted in long hours of power outages in several parts of Goa including Panaji and its suburbs in the state capital. In some areas, Cabral said water-logging posed an obstacle to linemen seeking to ascertain and correct faults or restore fallen poles. Reaching some points in wooded areas only added to their problems.
Eight electricity poles in the village of Rivona have been knocked down by high speed winds. “Our personnel are working 24×7, but when it continues to rain heavily it becomes difficult,” Nilesh Cabral, the power minister, said.
I was constantly monitoring the department on rainfall night as several areas, including parts of my constituency (Curchorem), had power outages,” Cabral said. He also said the department for electricity will evaluate their losses at a later stage.
While there have been instances of poles collapsing more than once after repairing and re-erecting, the minister said the department’s biggest challenge is to identify power supply faults, which take a lot of time.
Every monsoon, during inclement weather, the State experiences power failure. Outages in villages rarely last more than a day. Although underground cabling appears to be the only option, it has been kept on the back burner as there are several crores of rupees flowing into project costs. Yet some parts of the state had underground cables already laid.
