Michael Vaz
People were just beginning to heave a sigh of relief that their headache of standing in the long queues for paying the monthly electricity bills would be over with the much publicized online payment of the bills, when there is bad news that the department’s website has failed much to the mortification of many. It is important that the department puts up a foolproof website that cannot be tampered with and remains operational at all time so that the consumers can be benefitted from it.
That apart it would be fitting to comment on the interruptions in power supply at least in this area since the last couple of weeks. Let me make it amply clear that we have been staying in this place since the last nine years but never before has the supply been so irregular as what we have been experiencing these days. Whereas power failures have been a legacy in this state since decades, there is no justification for such frequent interruptions almost every day, ranging from momentary failures to several minutes and even for over an hour at times. Worst is the situation when power fails in the night.
We stay in the colony which has a standby generator which is overworked at times, resulting in its additional maintenance costs apart from the increasing cost of fuel. The electricity department has now set up a dedicated complaint number 1912 for registering the power complaints.
The department has tried to pacify the consumers giving the various causes of power failures like the branches of trees touching the power lines. But is it not the duty of the department to prune all the trees in the vicinity of the power lines before the onset of monsoons as a routine pre-monsoon maintenance works? Further it is said that natural forces like heavy winds, lightning and thundering cause power interruptions. However such things occur only during the onset of monsoons in the month of June.
What we are trying to highlight is that we are in the month of August and there is absolutely no lightning and thunder or heavy breeze and even the monsoon is poor, but power failures have been the norm of the day. The causes need to be identified and set right to ensure steady power supply.
