PORVORIM: Power Minister Nilesh Cabral informed the House that the govt will undertake the conversion of the overhead line network to underground cabling in a phased manner.
During the calling attention motion, Cabral said that in order to have a steady power supply, it is very necessary to have a reliable sub-transmission and distribution network.
“The Government has therefore plans for conversion of the overhead line network to underground cabling, in a phased manner subject to priorities and availability of funds,” he said.
He added that the work to convert the overhead 11 KV network to aerial bunched cabling is almost completed.
MGP MLA Sudin Dhavalikar had moved the motion.
Cabral said the interruptions in the power systems are attributed more to the natural calamity due to cyclonic winds and thunderstorms thus resulting in uprooting of trees, electric poles including transformer centres. “The cyclonic wind this year has been very intense and the distribution network has been impacted severely,” he said.
He added that the power supply interruptions can also be attributed normally to various reasons such as overloading by consumers, lack of earthing by consumers, elongation of conductor due to ageing and leading to snapping, failure of insulators due to lightning and ageing, cutting of underground cables while digging in the vicinity of cables by other agencies like PWD, BSNL, others.
