The Hindu : Other States / Orissa News : OERC rues ‘dismal show’ of Southco

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Saturday, Jul 12, 2008
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OERC rues ‘dismal show’ of Southco

Staff Reporter

Power supply may collapse any day, warns the regulatory commission

‘Interruption in supply is quite high in Berhampur’
Probe team finds lapses in works

BERHAMPUR: Electricity supply in the city may collapse any day due to its dismal maintenance by the power supply company, Southco. It’s not a remark made by a common citizen. It’s an observation and warning by the Orissa Electricity Regulatory Commission (OERC).

As per the reports, the OERC is almost shocked by the state of poorly-maintained power supply system in the city.

The OERC has also felt that interruption of power supply is quite high in Berhampur.

The OERC team has analysed the power supply interruption of more than 30 minutes in 11 KV feeder, which showed that total duration of interruption was 1690 minutes during May, June, July and December last year.

Poor quality

The poor quality power supply to Berhampur and regular interruptions have been reviewed by B.K. Das, Chairperson of OERC, S.K. Jena and K.C. Badu, its members.

Directive

The OERC has ordered the Southco to explain the exact reason for such poor performance.

It may be noted that since the 1999 super cyclone, the power supply network in the city remains in dismal state. The totally-disrupted supply network of the city has been made functional in a hurry by the team of electricity restoration workers from Andhra Pradesh.

According to citizens of the city, the state of power supply remains in the same state what it was after its restoration in a makeshift manner by the Andhra technicians in 1999.

The OERC has also investigated into the allegations through a probe team.

The probe team has found that the distribution elements are neither maintained properly nor maintained on a patch work basis.

The OERC also found that 87 per cent of the power interruptions in the city were due to breakdown as compared to 13 per cent interruption due to shutdown.

The breakdowns occurred due to lack of periodic preventive maintenance, bad workmanship and may be due to use of substandard materials in the system, marked OERC.

The OERC felt the Southco should put extra stress on completion of specific maintenance works in time-bound manner.

Investment

It also felt that no major investment was required for maintenance work in the city.

The commission directed Southco to appoint a technical head with the responsibility of monitoring the completion of maintenance works in time.

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