Marna-Siolim wards namely Bamon Vaddo, Madhle Bhat, Tarchi Bhat and Fernandes Vaddo have been facing power outages from 2021, repeated complaints to the Electricity Department, have fallen on the deaf ears.
My letter dated August 10, 2021 to then Power Minister Nilesh Cabral had initiated an inquiry into the same at the Superintendent Engineer (Com) and asked the Executive Engineer Div XV11 to reply to the Siolim Civic and Consumer Forum with regards to the frequent trip outs on Sodiem-Siolim feeder. Till now, there has not been any effort from these concerned engineers.
On October 20 and 21, two shutdowns had been initiated by the department for maintenance, but both the days, the consumers were put into tremendous hardships during the whole day with no power. Many business establishments had to suffer, the food items in the fridges got spoilt, the online services/internet were out of order and to aggravate the suffering, the mosquitoes during the night gave everyone a sleepless night till 2 am in the morning. This repeated the next day too, this time the HT line near Burye junction to Madhle Bhat snapped. It took almost eight hours to restore the power to the consumers.
The engineers get handsomely paid by the taxpayers’ money and this is the type of service that is rendered to the electricity consumers. The 1912 call centre goes off the hook, while the land line at the section office has not been working for years now.
The consumers are forced to be self-reliant (Atmanirbhar) by purchasing inverters or generators to keep the supply in their homes and offices on. The Power Minister needs to see that the WhatsApp messages are recorded for recording the complaints of the consumers since 1912 is unreliable during an emergency. Why pay for such call centres when the service is horrible? The local MLA and sarpanchas of the Siolim need to mobilise the ‘Siolcars’ to hold a dharna in front of the Electricity Department office at Agarwado.
