Team Herald
MARGAO: Over 200 people took to the streets on Tuesday night to demand the restoration of power supply to houses in Fatorda and Margao. The people were also angered after the electricity department employees responsible for picking the calls of consumers were allegedly seen drunk at work, and they had also removed the receiver of the phone to prevent people from calling.
The power problems continued to affect residents under the jurisdiction of the MMC, and the streetlights were seen flickering on Tuesday night. On Wednesday morning, the municipal councillors of Fatorda and MLA Vijai Sardesai convened a meet with power department officials to find out what had happened.
Sardesai has warned the electricity department that he would urge the aggrieved people not to pay their power bills and call for a civil disobedience if the problem of power cuts was not solved within 24 hours.
The MLA had called on the department engineers and grilled them about the power cut on Tuesday night and the public anger that followed. He criticised the dept for not having any infrastructure to maintain the power lines, for alleged alcoholism and for not attending to phone calls.
“This power cut suspiciously happened exactly on the border of the Fatorda. Is it that the opposition constituencies are being targeted by the government? If this is the case, then tell it clearly as for the last month, there are problems of garbage collection, water and now power,” said Sardesai.
A power dept engineer stated, “The conductor of the substation feeder got snapped at a place where power surges in from Ponda, Margao and Verna and then is distributed to substations. When we realised that there was a problem with the feeder, we started work and completed the same at 12.40 am. We have contacted the Verna substation to give us power supply, and by taking up the matter with the Superintendent Engineer and Executive Engineer, they have agreed to give it to us.”
