Two months after Cyclone Nisarga wreaked havoc in 1,976 villages of Raigad district, the Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company Limited (MSEDCL) has finally restored power supply for 10.73 lakh affected consumers.
The cyclone had made a landfall at Murud on June 3.
Chief engineer Pushpa Chavan, Bhandup zone, said within the first week of the cyclone, they managed to repair the incoming lines at switching substations and restored the power for 50% consumers. “But the challenge was to work on the hilly terrains, where transportation was not possible. Our staff had to carry electric poles on their shoulders. Then came heavy rain which posed another challenge. Besides, many banyan trees had fallen on transformers during the cyclone, damaging supply lines. Exactly after a month, on July 3, electricity for 10.11 lakh consumers from 1,837 villages was restored,” she said.
The last village to get the electricity back was Sangwad in Mhasla taluka. Electric poles on a 2.5-km stretch from Thakrodi village to Sangwad were completely damaged. The work of installing 12 electric poles and one transformer was finished on Sunday.
The cyclone had damaged 32 switching substations, 261 feeders, 6,773 distribution transformers, 7,015 high tension electric poles, and 14,865 low tension electric poles at 1,976 villages in Alibaug, Panvel, Karjat, Uran, Khalapur, Pen, Roha, Murud, Tala, Mangaon, Mhasla, Mahad, Poladpur, and Shrivardhan talukas.
Ms. Chavan, the first woman chief engineer in MSEDCL, said even as the company had made sure that there was never any power failure during the COVID-19 times, the cyclone damaged the electrical infrastructure that was erected in the last 60 years. “We restored the complete infrastructure of 60 years in two months, and it is historic,” she said, adding, for the restoration works, staff from other zones of the MSEDCL and private power companies were deployed.
