Deputy Chief Minister Prestone Tynsong on Friday said, the impact of Sitrang Cyclone is massive in the state as it left behind a series of destruction, in the form of downed power lines and fallen trees. While several districts were affected due to this, in few villages in the state, electricity is yet to be restored.
Speaking to reporters, the Deputy Chief Minister said, the damages due to cyclone it’s very huge.
“So many villages are affected due to the cyclone, I don’t have the numbers, but I am telling you in terms of the district and in terms of the damages due to the cyclone it’s very huge,” Tynsong said.
“Not only West Garo hills, but also in East Garo hills, North Garo hills, this (electricity) problem is still there and our people are on the job because there are major damages where they need to ultimately reconstruct the electric line due to this cyclone that happened,” the Dy CM said.
He further informed that not only that even the entire Khasi Hills region, be it in west khasi hills, had huge damage, even Ri Bhoi huge damage, East Khasi Hills huge damage.
“Some villages are yet to get electricity, but I have already instructed our engineers, our officers to be on the job, to be on the ground, to make sure at the earliest possible electricity is restored,” he said.
Asked about the assessment of the estimated damage, he said, “We have asked the concerned district administrations, even from the MeECL side we have asked them to submit all the details of the damage.”
Recently the CM has a review meeting with all the district administration, on this Tynsong said, “We have instructed accordingly to submit the details of the damages. For restoration of electricity the process is on, all our engineers are on the ground , instruction has been given from the power department to all concerned engineers to all the concerned SDOs all concerned executive engineers to be there stationed on the ground to work day and night till the restoration takes place. We wanted to see that the restoration takes place at the earliest.”
West Garo Hills Deputy Commissioner Swapnil Tambe said the electricity is restored in almost all the localities.
“It almost complete in Tura town,” he said.
Earlier, West Garo Hills district administration has roped in Aapda Volunteers who were recently trained by DDMA for assisting the community in times of disaster. Not only this, additional manpower like Skilled manpower from other districts, civil defence volunteers, MR workers from other line departments were mobilized.
Meanwhile, replying to a query on the prospect of underground electric cables, the Deputy Chief Minister spoke about various challenges including that of difficult terrain that the MeECL workers and district administration faced to restore back electricity.
“……if you specially go to the rural areas, you will see the ups and downs, sometimes the hillock, sometimes the slopes and then , it’s not that easy,” he said.
Tynsong while highlighting the challenges said, the engineers have to work for more than three hours sometimes to get to the location and repair the damages. The inaccessibility of the road has delayed the restoration of electricity work.
“We have to be sure that those places where the electric lines passes it should be little accessible, because right now sometimes our engineers have to walk for 3 hours to climb the rock, or to climb the hill, it’s not simple, because these damages it happened in such places that’s why it takes lot of time for restoration because they have to walk, then so many challenges are there,” he added.