More than 7000 consumers could have been affected; Area was immediately back-fed on priority basis.
SNDL officials had also warned the JCB engaged in sewage line repair works.
SNDL repeats its appeal to other utilities to consult for repair or new works.
Nagpur: It is becoming a repetitive phenomenon for the utilities of Nagpur where one or the other public utilities are negligently hitting the underground cables laid by MSEDCL or SNDL for power supply. One such incidence happened in the afternoon of July 30, 2016 when one JCB hit two major 11 KV supply cables running underground on the busy CA Road.
As per information received through sources by SNDL, it was learnt that a JCB was trying to dig up the retention wall of a choked sewage line near Chhapru Nagar Chowk. Exact location was identified as Ramkrishna Apartment, behind Chapru Lok Building on the aforesaid square where even SNDL has one of its important offices.
At around 9:30AM, a consumer informed an SNDL engineer that a JCB was trying to do some digging work, probably for releasing the overflowing sewage line which was choked. Sensing trouble, the SNDL officials rushed to the spot and enquired further. Enquiry revealed that nobody had informed other utilities about the operation. As the digging work was already halfway by then, the SNDL team could clearly indicate the exposed cables to the persons supervising the JCB work. They even informed them that so many consumers could suffer if even one of the cables was hit. The SNDL team later left the spot after being assured that no further work was being undertaken by the JCB.
However, around 2:30 pm the Wardhaman Nagar sub-station which provides the feed through these cables and supplies further to the Wardhaman Nagar, Chhapru Nagar, Lakda Market, CA Road areas of the locality reported major fault in supply and also informed the officials that both the inputs were not supplying. The team immediately traced the issue to the same spot where it was learnt that the JCB had later continued their work at almost same spot despite the timely warning and had completely damaged the cables beyond repair.
More than 7,000 consumers were engulfed by outage due to this negligent action. Due to early attention on the matter, the SNDL officials could spring into action and the complete area was back-fed through alternative arrangements within an hour. 3 DTC (transformers) which catered to nearly 300 consumers could be provided supply only after 9 PM later in the night.
It is important to note that the underground cables had been laid quite long ago during MSEDCL operations and was lying underneath the sewage line.
SNDL has repeated its appeal to utilities to be more careful in the better interest of consumers and not to undertake excavation or digging works without informing other utilities to ensure seamless services of all utilities to citizens of Nagpur.
