In an unprecedented deployment of its workforce, Southern Power Distribution Company Limited (SPDCL) has sent nearly 1,000 engineers and technical staff from Vijayawada zone for power restoration works in the cyclone-ravaged areas in north Andhra districts.
More than 500 of them left on Sunday evening itself in special buses and the SPDCL Chairman and Managing Director H.Y. Dora too rushed to the port city to supervise the operations.
AP-Transco has also dispatched its engineers and workers to the affected areas.
Chief Engineer (Vijayawada) K. Rajabapaiah and other top officials of the southern DISCOM left for Visakhapatnam from Vijayawada, Guntur and Ongole to supervise the restoration works which are expected to take at least two days for completion.
Those deputed by SPDCL and Transco include engineers who have the expertise to get high tension transmission lines repaired and necessary material assistance is also being rendered from Vijayawada.
Mr. Rajabapaiah told The Hindu that power restoration was obviously crucial for bringing back the situation to normal but it depended on how well the government departments and other agencies coordinated in the hour of crisis.
It was going to be a mammoth effort as some inter-State lines were raged to the ground and disruption of power generation at NTPC’s Simhadri Thermal Power Project was a cause for concern as it meets a substantial portion of the energy requirement of Andhra Pradesh.
The collapse of telecommunication networks was a major impediment while the Visakhapatnam-based Eastern Power Distribution Company Limited went about assessing the extent of damage.
