PONDA: The MGP supporters from four constituencies Priol, Marcaim, Ponda and Shiroda on Friday evening ‘gheraoed’ the Executive Engineer Office at Curti Sub-Station and demanded that it should first solve the power crisis in these four constituencies and then think about diverting the power supply allotted to Ponda taluka for South Goa. 

MGP supporters including the sarpanchas, Zilla Parishad members, panchas under the leadership Ketan Bhatikar, Kavlem Sarpanch Rajesh Kavlekar, and Bandora Sarpanch Ramchandra Naik met Executive Engineer Sunil Wadekar and submitted the memorandum urging him not to divert the power supply allotted for Ponda taluka to South Goa.

MGP Ponda Block led by sarpanchas of various panchayats have opposed the diversion of main power supply of Ponda to South Goa citing that Ponda is already facing great hardship due to frequent power outages and under this circumstances if power supply of Ponda is diverted to meet the shortages of South, the residents of this taluka would face major hardships. 

Bhatikar informed that they put forward their demand after news appearing in local daily about Power Minister’s announcement to shift the surplus power from Ponda to South Goa. “We are not against people of South Goa but the power crisis in Ponda taluka should be solved first.” 

He said, “There is OPA Project which needs constant power supply for supply of water to Ponda and Tiswadi talukas.” 

He further added there are many water tanks where most of the times pumps are not operating due to frequent power interruptions causing water shortages to the locals in Ponda. 

Wadekar assured that Ponda power supply will not be curtailed and will look into the outages in all the four constituencies of Ponda taluka.