If I am not mistaken since 2015, the hotels did bear the brunt of power shedding by running it on generators to a maximum of four hours a day. The hoteliers lobby then realised the power shedding was digging a hole into their profits, hence they put down their grievances and appealed to the Government that power shedding should be borne by the villagers too.
Why should the villagers bear the brunt of power shedding? Who’s running the business? Who has the maximum number of rooms? Are the hoteliers responsible for the damage done to our equipment and the food stuff? Will the hoteliers share their profits with the villagers? So why make the villagers suffer? Isn’t this ridiculous and unacceptable?
Yes, the Government also wasn’t proactive in planning the high consumption of electricity in the State due to high inflow of migrants from other parts of India. We at Saligao faced tremendous outages from mid March to mid June due to illegal connections issued by the local panchayats.
Our close neighbours Calangute and Baga are facing similar problems since 2015. Almost five years now since the power shedding has begun and I don’t find the Government or the local MLAs are shouldering any responsibility to resolve the issue.
Why depend on Maharashtra and Karnataka for power supply, focus should be on installing power generation plants in the North and South Goa on priority basis and not converting lands into settlements for personal gains or saying “Khabardhar (mindful)” to those who utter “Viva Portugal”.
It’s high time we stand on our own feet, than only we will have some Ache Din!
