Dinesh Kamath's Editorial 'Attempts made to solve electricity related problems in city' that was published in Newsband

Attempts made to solve electricity related problems in city

In Navi Mumbai, owing to the carelessness of Electricity Board, we constantly find the city residents facing some kind of problem or other related to electricity. Either there is constant occurrences in stoppage of electricity supply or someone receiving electric shock etx. Hence MP Rajan Vichare called a meeting with corporators of Airoli and Belapur at CIDCO guest house. Present for this meeting was Bhandup municipal zonal division’s chief engineer Pushpa Chavan, Navi Mumbai superintending engineer Rajesh Naik, the executive engineers of both Airoli and Belapur legislative constituencies, district chief Vitthal More, Dwarkanath Bhoir and opposition party leader Vijay Chougule. 

The first issue raised was about the stopping of electric supply owing to short circuit at Airoli, Rabale and Ghansoli owing to which the residents over there are not able to fill water in the morning. These residents feel greatly inconvenienced because of this. The reply given by Electricity Board representative was that the short circuit was owing to electric cables having become old. The electricity board representative was reminded that these cables were installed just three months back. The representative had to agree to that. That means he was caught lying. MP Rajan Vichare then issued an order saying that the chief engineer should find out whether the cables installed were of good quality.

The second issue was related to sub-station. After some discussion, MP Rajan Vichare concluded by saying that on the two thousand square meter plot at Airoli Sector 14, all the encroachments should be removed and on that plot a new sub-station should come up. MP Rajan Vichare asked why the electricity was supplied to the illegally encroached hutments. The reply given was that those hutments were constructed before 1995. 

Those present during the meeting also questioned as to why CIDCO which had promised to remove these encroachments in 2011 did not keep its promise. MP Rajan Vichare has decided to hold meeting with CIDCO authorities to discuss this encroachment and sub-station issues.

After that came up an interesting issue related to a small boy of Ghansoli who was burnt owing to electricity shock. This boy was given a compensation of only Rs 20000. MP Rajan Vichare asked for action to be taken against the concerned officer who was responsible for the incident and he also declared that compensation to the victim should be paid by Electricity Board. Another issue that came up was about the work of changing feeder box at Koparkhairane that was pending. The Electricity Board representatives promised to complete this work within two months.

The main electricity cable line which was not put underground at Indira Nagar’s ward no. 73 was claiming many lives. The reason why necessary action could not be taken in this matter was owing to lack of funds. But now that the funds are made available to Electricity Board, the representative of the board has promise to take necessary action within one month.

The overhead lines at Agroli Talav in Belapur is in a state where it can break and fall and cause loss of lives. Here again MP Rajan Vichare promised to obtain funds for the work of repairing the overhead lines and get the work done at the earliest.

The residents of societies complain that the Electricity Board are always short of stock of electric cables to correct the electric faults that they face owing to which these residents have to get some contractors to get the work done with their money. They also requested that all the electric cables which are thrown into the gutters should be removed out and buried underground.

At the end of the meeting, the ultimate Bhandup Municipal Zonal Division’s chief Engineer Pushpa Chavan called upon the residents to lodge complaint about any corrupt electricity officer or other electricity related problems over 19120.

So the participants in this meeting dealt on many issues related to electricity in detail. Now we will have to see whether the city residents will get total relief from all electricity related problems in the days to come. If they do get relief, only then can we say that this meeting was successful.