She said that people had been complaining to her about daily power cuts, which had never happened before.
The villagers of Cortalim-Quelossim complained that most power failures were caused due to snapping of high-tension lines. They had to wait for hours before the power returned as the linesmen from the Zuari Nagar sub-station also attended to Sancoale and Chicalim.
They also complained that the electricity department had not trimmed the trees before the monsoons, and that the power went out even when there was no rain or breeze.
Saldanha asked the engineers to trom the trees urgently wherever needed and requested them to depute a worker to the Cortalim office only to answer the public’s phone calls whenever the linesmen were unavailable.
The engineers informed Saldanha that the department had a staff shortage. She replied that she would take up the same with the Power Minister, along with the other pending works in the constituency, like underground cabling, renovation and improvement of infrastructure, installation of new transformers and enhancement of the existing ones. She added that the needs were placed with the power department two years ago.
