Last night (Saturday-Sunday), it was the turn of the Arrarim feeder.
Earlier, on Friday-Saturday night, much of the northern part of the
village was in the dark.
This time round, power went off around 8 pm Saturday, and came back only
by 9 am on Sunday, only to go again by 10 am. In between, the lights came
on about 20 times, and went off after varying gaps of three seconds to 15
minutes! I'm typing this email on inverter power-supply.
This is getting really trying. We need some way to impress on
the authorities how difficult it makes life and work in the
village.
BTW, it might help if as many of us could complain when there's a problem.
The Saligao sub-station number is 2407 301. At Porvorim, the number is 241
7711. There's also the Saligao electricity office (at the panchayat)
whose number is 2409 190.
Yesterday, one tried ringing up Chief Electrical Engineer T H Rao on his
residence number 275 2211, but was told it was a "wrong number".
Of course, the public servants, known for their ?efficiency,
are known to pass the buck. For much of the past night, the
Saligao sub-station (on the hilltop) was apparently off
the hook. "We get calls all the time; come here and see,"
one was told on Sunday morning.
The electricity staffer also said, "We are not doing this on purpose." He
went on to rattle how the transformers at Arrarim had developed some
problem.
It may be recalled that after the Parrikar government was ousted from
power, the Congress made the allegation that moles within the electricity
department were harassing the public by sabotaging power supply. One can't
help feeling that something of the same might be happening within the
Saligao; we've seen how past governments would light up or paint the
church when the local MLA was in their good books. Likewise, we have seen
how various political forces (from government officials to other
political parties, and their local supporters) in the state have played
politics over the Salmona issue, maybe in an attempt to alienate the local
MLA from his voters. As the situation remains festering, the sense of
anger among the villagers obviously grows!
Whatever the truth of the matter, when the infrastructure collapses over
such long periods of time in the village, everybody suffers. After the
April 20, 2005 storm, some areas of our village got power restored only
after 36 hours!
Perhaps we need to be more active in understanding the
situation, and complain swiftly whenever we face a problem.
Maybe someone from Saligao's consumer forum could also
post their updates and links on this list, telling us
of what the situation is, any problems anticipated, and
whom we could raise the issue with.
Saligaonet would also benefit if the consumers' forum could post updates
on their activities. As it is, we have a long way to go in terms of
improving the infrastructure as far as water-supply, rainwater-harvesting,
electricity supply, telephone quality of service, public transport, postal
services, drainages and panchayat services go.
Your suggestions are welcome. FN
..........................................................................
Frederick (FN) Noronha | Freelance Journalist | Mobile +91 9822 122436
Tel +91.832.2409490 | http://fn.swiki.net | http://www.bytesforall.net
..........................................................................
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