HARIDWAR: Officials of the Uttarakhand Power Corporation Limited (UPCL) have announced that they will soon utilise the underground cabling in the city to ensure an uninterrupted power supply.
PS Bhattacharya, project general manager, told TOI, “We completed the underground cable project on March 25 in a record time. The underground cabling will not just ensure uninterrupted power supply and reduced theft of power but also increased revenue for the UPCL.”
The official added that 99% of electricity poles, overhead conductors, and insulators were removed during the project, making the city traffic more smooth.
However, the project has come under sharp criticism from Congress. Nagar Nigam councillor and Congress leader Ashok Sharma called the work ‘unsatisfactory’. He also pointed out that the underground cables are laid in ducts specifically made for the purpose but no such ducts were made. To this, project manager Sanjiv Sharma said, “Ducts were made for cables as per requirement. The only exceptions were in the cases of nullahs, bridges and transformers where cables were put in galvanised iron (GI) pipes.”
Earlier in February this year, mayor Anita Sharma had written a letter to the President of India alleging that while several structures in the city were demolished to clear encroachments in 2018, low-tension panels, which obstruct roads across the city, were erected in 2020.
