R&B roadblocks substations in Hyderabad

Lack of road cutting permissions delay power supply

As is natural for a city of Hyderabad’s stature, there is increasing demand for new power connections. But with authorities delaying permission for road cutting, so that input lines may be laid, the charging of substations is being delayed.

Cases in point are the 33 and 11KV substations near the Koti Women’s College and the Nizam College respectively, which, despite having been complete in all civil works, are still waiting to be charged for want of input lines.

“We need to cut the road to lay underground cable lines and despite repeated requests to the Roads and Buildings (R&B) Department, we are not getting the necessary permissions,” say CPDCL officials.

The substation near Nizam College needs to get its supply from the 132/33 KV Hussainsagar substation, for which, a 33KV cable line needs to be laid via Secretariat.

“The stretch from Nizam College up to the Telugu Talli flyover belongs to the GHMC, and we could finish the works on this stretch. However, for carrying out works from the flyover up to the Mint Compound, we need permissions from the R&B, which are hard to come by,” says a Superintendent Engineer.

Similar is the case with the Koti Women’s College substation, which needs its input supply from the Imlibun substation.

But the stretch from Imlibun to Chaderghat has been hanging fire with no nod yet from R&B officials.

Though requests were placed with R&B officials way back in December 2011— as soon as the Letters of Intent were issued — a nod from the department is yet to arrive, they said.

Also pending for a few months is another request for clearance to interlink lines between Sivarampally and Chandulal Baradari substations.

CPDCL officials say the delay has to do with the payment of road cutting charges directly to the R&B department, instead of routing them through contractors. Payment through contractors allowed scope for collusion between them and the engineers, which is not possible now, they say.

With construction of each substation costing around Rs.11 crore, the pending road cutting permissions are resulting in locked investment for CPDCL.

Work is currently on for 24 substations within the Metro Zone, officials added.