By:Himvani
Kullu district of Himachal Pradesh remains in dark for sixth consecutive day with the administration failing to restore the power in Kullu and areas surrounding it. Around 110 SSB personnel along with the technical staff of Himachal Pradesh Power Transmission Corporation Limited and 140 other people have been roped in to repair the fault in 132KV line at Nau area.
Sources have also revealed that in Kullu district, of the 1,300 distribution transformers of 11KV not even a single is working at the moment. Heavy snowfall in the area has resulted into the power supply to the area getting cut as the transmission lines are snapped at several places. Snowfall has also exposed the poor management of district administration towards disaster management.
Although the sources confirm that the administration is making continuous efforts to connect the transmission lines. The area surrounding Panarsa in Mandi district to the entire valley of Manali is rolling in darkness. Fighting the intense cold conditions, jawans of SSB and Home guards and employees of the state electricity board are making continuous efforts to restore power.
Initial estimates of the loss caused by snow to electricity department have been put at around Rupees 5 crore as beside main transmission lines, hundreds of poles have been uprooted and transformers damaged. While efforts are on to restore the supply to the main towns including Kullu and Manali at the earliest but it would still be taking over a week to restore the power supply in remote bound areas.
