By Firstdespatch Desk Oct 26, 2022
Agartala, Oct 26 (FD) While the Sitrang cyclone did not hit Tripura as hard as predicted, there are a fair amount of aftermath to cyclones that hit the state on October 24 and 25, especially electricity services in the state.
As per weather reports, it was predicted that the storm will hit with a speed of 70-80 km/hr and therefore the government took large scale preparation to face the aftermath but the cyclone did not do much harm as was predicted, however reports of protests and road blockade from various part of the state, including Agartala and surrounding areas have come to light.
The lack of coordination at various levels in the electricity department was the root cause of the chaos around power loss, said by the Tripura State Electricity Corporation officials in a press conference held on Tuesday evening.
The corporation authorities indirectly accepted the various deficiencies in their work and said the situation won’t be normalized until Wednesday afternoon.
According to sources, failure of the 33 KV power supply system is the root cause for the power loss in different parts of Tripura.
The coming of Sitrang cyclone was predicted before and they reached the state as per predictions on Sunday night which only grew since Monday evening. In spite of reports from the weather department, the situation around faulty electricity services started long before that. Inconveniences due to electricity affected people much more than the actual storm and bad weather conditions.
In the press conference called by Tripura Electricity corporation main office in Bhutoria on Tuesday evening, the managing director Debasis Sarkar recounted the damage caused by the storm which includes approximate loss of 1.5 crore rupees, 45 transformer supplying electricity have broken down, 231 high conductor poles and 342 low conductor poles have fallen down and transmission wires have been torn over a distance of 314 Km.
The MD of the Tripura Electricity Corporation along with General Manager Engineer Hare Krishna Das and Assistant General manager Sadar Kanaklal Das assured that steps have been taken to normalize the situation and they have already met few successes. The high conductivity power systems have been normalized in most cases and the work of normalizing the low conductivity power system will soon reach completion. The only work left is to deliver power connections to people’s houses, which will be completed by Wednesday afternoon. However, he said the problems will increase in case of a new disaster.
The complaints of the consumer however do not match the claims of the electricity corporation. A fault rectification team of the corporation named 1912 is unable to solve the constant incoming complaints by the consumers. The consumers have complained that cellular connection cannot be made to 1912 helpline number in most cases, which the authority indirectly admitted to. The corporation mentioned an initiative to establish coordination between the central team and error rectification team, in this regard.
A group of angry consumers entered the hall during the press conference and started protesting about the 1912 connection error. Road was blocked with demands of electricity connection at the Tantipara cooperative on Airport road around 7 pm in the evening.
The overall aftermath of the Sitrang cyclone in Tripura is not much compared to neighboring places such as the landfall in Barishal, Bangladesh on Tuesday morning. FD DM
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