TEAM HERALD
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PANJIM: Supply of Electricity, as also many other services are taken for granted with authorities only waking up when crisis strikes, but fail to do regular maintenance and exercise proactive governance to maintain the infrastructure.
Despite claims that the state is high on so many development parameters, today a part of Campal had to go without electricity from 4 pm till this paper went to bed amidst indications that supply would not be restored till Friday.
Even as the electricity department officials were repairing a fault in another part of Campal a loud blast accompanied by black smoke heralded a fire in a transformer situated behind the Campal trade centre, near a under construction site.
However, since the transformer was located in private property, fire services managed to get to the site with great difficulty, prompting locals to question the wisdom of the authorities in allowing transformers to be located in such places and raise issues regarding provisions for fire escapes, access for fire tenders in the area, since a tragedy is waiting to happen in most parts of Panjim where caution is thrown to the winds regarding fire safety. In the ensuing fire the panel board and cable wires were in flames before the fire officials managed to douse the fire.
Officiating chief electrical engineer S Lekshmanan told Herald that he was not aware of the incident but would look into the matter. However when questioned on the wisdom of locating a transformer in such a place, he expressed his helplessness in the matter.
Meanwhile, the directorate of fire and emergency services has written to the electricity department to inquire into the cause of the fire.
According to fire officer, Harishchandra Naik, property worth Rs 7 lakh went up in flames but they saved property worth Rs 45 lakh.
“On receiving a call at about 3:55pm, we rushed a fire tender to the spot and doused the fire before it could spread. It took nearly an hour,” he said.
Meanwhile, CCP mayor, Surendra Furtado getting into the act said that he had also felt that the PDA “should take the PWD, electricity and telephone departments into consideration to see which side the electricity, water and other connections should be put.”
He said that they had written to the PWD on various issues. “Unless place is allocated for parking, transformers and other such utilities the PDA should not pass the files,” the mayor categorically said.
