CHENNAI: Even before the onset of the northeast monsoon this year, the city has had five electrocution deaths due to snapped power cables in the last two months including that of a 30-year-old sanitary worker early on Saturday. While the state government’s response has been largely reactive, it seems to have no clear roadmap for preventing such deaths.
A day after the death of a 17-year-old boy in Thiruvottiyur on July 2, J Radhakrishnan, chairman and managing director of Tamil Nadu Electricity Board (TNEB), constituted a ‘special committee’ to review and recommend preventive measures. The panel was asked to study the damage to underground cables and infrastructure caused by road cuts and related works, and submit a report in 15 days, by July 18. It is learnt that no report has been submitted so far.
The lack of inter-departmental coordination becomes clearer with each case of electrocution. Officials from the Tamil Nadu Power Distribution Corporation Limited (TNPDCL) said if underground power cables are damaged due to road cuts by departments, TNPDCL is never informed.
“We had several meetings with Chennai corporation and other departments in this regard in the past few years, but they have not been effective. Unless the state government interferes in this issue, it is impossible to find a solution,” an official said.
N Chitrarasu, chairman of Chennai corporation’s standing committee on works, said he has consistently called for joint meetings with officials from the electricity department, GCC and metro water to avoid communication gap, not only during monsoons but on a regular basis.
Denying TNPDCL’s claims that the GCC fails to inform it about cable damage during road restoration or underground works, Chitrarasu said, “It is in fact the electricity board that frequently carries out road cut work without seeking GCC’s NOC and then fails to repair utilities damaged as a consequence of it.”
Compounding it are technical troubles that fail to cut off power supply when a cable snaps. The 11 kV HT overhead lines frequently fail to trip at the substation-end during fault conditions, such as snapping of power lines, officials said. Because the cables are long, the fault current becomes too weak to reach the substation and trigger the breaker. This may be rectified by shorter line lengths, which in turn mean more substations need to be installed.
TNPDCL also blames the lack of manpower to identify such damaged cables or power leakages due to snapped lines. Official sources said there are 60,000 posts that have been lying vacant for many years now. The state government has not appointed permanent directors for power distribution, generation, and operations, or even a full-time MD for Tamil Nadu Transmission Corporation in recent months. Chief engineers are holding additional charge of these posts which, officials say, is ineffective.
Vishu Mahajan, joint managing director (Finance), TNPDCL, told TNIE, “TNEB and the private company have given `10 lakh each as compensation to the family of the GCC worker who died of electrocution in Kannagi Nagar. We have identified 27 spots where underground cables were exposed and rectified them. Whenever we receive complaints, the faults are attended to immediately.”
(With inputs from Praveena S A @ Chennai & Gautham Selvarajan @ Chennai)