Adv Carlos slams govt for haphazard underground cabling, power cuts.

PANAJI: Aldona Congress MLA Adv Carlos Alvares Ferreira on Monday hit out at the Goa government for failing to properly restore the roads after underground cabling, on account of what he said was a blame game between departments over who had to restore the road. “When the underground cabling was being done. There was no proper monitoring activity which was done. The contractor with his workers came and they were just digging left right centre and they were breaking the gutters, the cross drains and absolutely there was no proper control. It was just fury at rage,” he said. Following the restoration works, they claim it is of two parts. One is relating to restoration of gutters, the drains, the cross drains and after that is the tarring which will be done by the PWD. PWD refuses to do the work unless these people have broken have restored it and it is only like a ping pong which is going on which is one to the other. We have to phone them, we have to threaten them and then they come with their workers. Suddenly they disappear. I think other constituencies are also facing this,” he said. “The Contractor, if it is part of his contract, is bound to fulfill it and you are bound to ensure that it is done. Otherwise our work is getting delayed,” he added. He said that despite the inconvenience caused on account of the underground cabling, “we are still having frequent power outages.”“This is being blamed on falling of the trees, but there are other causes also in which insulators are going and then you are having problems with the transformer. We are having low voltage and permanent fluctuations which should not have happened once your underground cabling has been done. I know you will say that we have not taken the low tension lines underground, but it should not happen. The frequency with which it is happening, should not have happened,” he also said. Adv Ferreira also said that the government had failed to recover dues amounting to lakhs of rupees from big ticket defaulters “What action has been taken to recover amounts due from them. If a small man defaults then the next month they come to cut the connection But these defaulting entities for which big losses are there. These losses will be considered to justify raising and tariff hikes,” he said. Adv Carlos also said that the government needs to have an online portal to notify for scheduled power shutdowns in real time as well as organising the shutdowns for maintenance and pruning of trees in order that the public is not inconvenienced.