Ten days after Cyclone Biparjoy flattened electricity poles that led to a complete blackout across the expansive Kutch and the adjoining Patan districts on June 15, Paschim Gujarat Vij Company Limited (PGVCL) said that power has been restored in all villages of the district and that work is going on war-footing to restore lines supplying powers to farmers. The state government-owned power distribution company said in an official release that power supply was restored to all feeders of Jyotigram Yojana (JGY) by the morning of June 24. “Our teams kept working in a challenging environment, including water-logged areas in the Khavda region on the Indo-Pakistan international border, and completed the task of restoring (power) in the remotest village by Saturday (June 24),” DV Lakhani, PGVCL chief engineer (technical), said. The company said that as of June 24, 32,995 electricity poles were reported to be either uprooted or damaged and 4,295 power transformers (TC) damaged across its jurisdiction spread over 11 districts of Saurashtra region, Kutch region and Patan district. Of them, 7,819 poles and 345 TCs were in Kutch. The maximum damage — 20,982 poles and 3,625 TCs — was reported in the Jamnagar circle comprising Jamnagar and Devbhumi Dwarka districts. “However, restoring power in Kutch was a huge challenge given the fact that Kutch district’s geographical expanse is larger than a few Indian states,” Lakhani said. The official said that PGVCL restored around 36,000 poles that had tilted and erected around 30,000 new ones in places of those damaged. He added that of the nearly 8,600 damaged power transformers, around 3,000 were rectified by Monday evening. Biparjoy had made landfall at Jakhau port in Kutch on June 15, with Koteshwar recording a wind speed of 120 kilometres per hour. In May 2021, when Cyclone Tauktae had made landfall near Una in Gir Somnath and Rajula in Amreli, PGVCL had taken many days to restore power. “However, we learnt our lessons from the past and kept material and manpower ready, anticipating Biparjoy was going to hit our infrastructure,” Lakhani said, adding, “It also helped that the intensity of Biparjoy was less when compared to Tauktae and GETCO (Gujarat Energy Transmission Corporation) was able to restore power in its high-tension lines in Kutch comparatively faster.” Incidentally, GETCO had said on Sunday that it had restored power to all “critical areas” by June 20. PGVCL draws power from high-tension power transmission lines of GETCO, the power transmission company owned by the Gujarat government and distributes it among various segments of consumers. “Work is going on a war-footing for restoring agricultural feeders that supply power to farmers for agricultural use,” said Lakhani, adding, “Our target is to restore all agricultural feeders by this weekend.” As of Monday evening, 496 agricultural feeders were down, including 223 in Kutch.
