Electricity department engineers are incompetent aka Power minister -- By Nisser Dias

Slight drizzle or mild lighting and thunder and a light breeze cause power outages in Goa. This is an indication of the quality of personnel the government of Goa has appointed to provide and maintain the power supply in the state. It also gives an insight into how the appointment of electrical engineers is done, pay the ministers and MLAs lakhs of rupees and inefficient, incompetent engineers are engaged by the government. Engineers who would never make it in the much more competent private sector end up in the electricity department. Engineers in the electricity department land the jobs not because of their knowledge of the subject but because of the bribes they can afford to pay the ministers to get the lucrative government job. If not let someone explain the delicate power system. Annual power shutdowns, and periodical shutdowns all in the name of maintenance of power equipment have not given any relief to the end consumer. Who continues to suffer from erratic power supply, frequent power outages and fluctuation on a daily basis. The electricity department engineers have over the period of time instead of improving the quality of electricity supply have developed indigenous replies to power issues. The replies are meant to confuse the layperson. Explanations like ‘circuits of the feeder station have failed’, ‘transformer batteries have developed faults’, ‘jumpers are being replaced’ and ‘transformers are being overhauled’ are among the many defenses the engineer’s resort to besides tree or tree branches fallen on transmission lines, fixing of street lights, transmission lines are old and the list goes on. Without flinching I can say that the increase in power tariffs is in proportion to the number of times in a single day power supply is denied to the consumer. Since the power shutdown for more than 12 hours on 21st May for annual maintenance, the quality of the power supply is pitiful. Two days after the shutdown villages in Salcete taluka had to suffer scorching heat for more than 2 hours, this is besides power cuts and fluctuations every day. The reason given was Velim feeder developed problems. A few days thereafter there was a power outage in the evening because one of the circuits at Xeldem station failed. In the month of June itself, business establishments along the Salcete coastal belt were denied power for 12 hours as the 11KV line was found to be faulty. On June 9th with light drizzle power supply was cut off for more than 5 hours as the battery of one of the transformers failed. At the same time, the government is also responsible for the power crisis in the state. And can we expect quality power supply when brokers like Monteiros are calling the shots in the power department and the engineers are reduced to minions of these extra-constitutional persons? Power minister Sudin Davlikar should in fact accept responsibility for worse state of affairs in the department and resign.