Loutolim, Camurlim connected to underground power cabling
HERALD REPORTER
MARGAO, APRIL 10
Underground power cabling received a big boost in the constituency of Power Minister Alexio Sequeira with the Chief Minister commissioning phase I of the Rs 40 crore 11 KV underground cabling covering the village Panchayat areas of Loutolim and Camurlim.
That’s not all. The government on Saturday invited tenders to cover the low tension electrical network in the villages of Loutolim, Camurlim, Verna, Raia, Rachol, Majorda, Betalbatim, Seraulim, parts of Colva at a cost of Rs 80 crore.
While commissioning the underground cabling project, Chief Minister Digambar Kamat said the project is indeed a birthday gift from the Power Minister on his birthday today.
In his address, the Power Minister said that he has taken care of the power requirements of the villages in his Loutolim constituency. He said the overhead high tension wires will soon disappear after the underground cabling project is fully commissioned.
On the occasion, the Power Minister complimented and felicitated the electricity department employees who contributed and lent their assistance to make the project a reality.
The Power Minister said that Loutolim will become the first village in entire village to have underground cabling facility, adding that phase I of the schemes converting the overhead lines to underground cables, connecting as many as 57 distribution transformers.
Saying that HT/LT lines were laid in Loutolim and other villages more than 30 years ago and are almost due for total renovation, Sequeira said the underground cables would bring drastic reduction in power interruptions due to tree fall, failures of insulators, snapping of conductors and for the overall improvement of the power supply system.
“With the proposed conversion of overhead distribution system to underground system, there will be considerable reduction in the technical losses, increase the reliability of the electrical network and improvement of the voltage profile and reduce the energy thefts”, he added.
Power officials put the HT losses for these villages at 12 per cent in different feeders and exuded confidence that the losses will come down to three per cent after the conversion.
“The voltage regulation of the 11 KV line presently around 7-9 per cent will improve and come down to two per cent after the conversion. Thus the voltage power profile for the area will increase which in turn will increase the billed energy as the consumption of the units will automatically increase when the equipments are operating at normal voltage as compared to sub-normal voltage”, stated Assistant Engineer Santosh Lolyenkar.
