Power utilities told to be vigilant in cyclone areas

Vijayawada: With men and material in place, state’s power utilities are ready to restore infrastructure damaged by Cyclone Phethai in all the affected in the coastal districts of East and Wet Godavari, Visakhapatnam and Srikakulam.

Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu, who was in Jaipur on Monday afternoon to attend the swearing in of Kamalnath as Rajasthan Chief Minister, directed the top officials of power utilities to be on high alert in cyclone-prone areas and implement the precautionary measures as per emergency response plan which is in place.

Minister K Kala Venkata Rao specifically directed the utilities to ensure that all possible steps were taken and power is restored to normalcy within a couple of days in case of outage. He also directed the staff to maintain same tempo for successfully facing the cyclone.

Principal Secretary of IT and CMD of APTransco K Vijayanand along with joint managing directors of APTransco Dinesh Paruchuri and Umapathi visited 220 kv substations in East Godavari district in Rajamahendravaram and Kakinada divisions.

He has been directly monitoring the status of number of poles, accessories, and number of man power allocated in each substation and further requirements of men and stock positions of equipment during emergency.

He also stated that drones are being used to monitor the inaccessible areas to check for the damage occurred. He directed all the staff to divide into groups and go for patrolling to oversee the fallen trees and the likely damage to the power lines as a precautionary measure and carry out trimming of trees in case of anticipated damage.

The CMD said that no employee would be on holiday during the next week till the cyclone effect is faded away and everyone would be engaged in prevention and restoration activities for supply of stable power supply to all the consumers in the affected mandals.