Rajkot: Cyclone Tauktae-ravaged electricity infrastructure in some parts of Amreli and Bhavnagar district will require quite some time to be restored to its original strength.
However, what is enlightening here is that self-propelled villagers here have taken the onus of restoring power upon themselves and joined hands with the PGVCL teams.
Around 400 youths of the village came forward to erect 65 electricity poles in one day in an area of 3km that has over 400 agricultural connections.
When the villagers had earlier represented their plight to the deputy engineer of PGVCL in Amreli rural, M L Parmar, he showed shortage of labour as a reason for the delay in restoration work.Villagers lost no time in offering their services as labour and started work under the guidance of engineers.
“We have made several teams each of 40 people and we are planning to erect 400 poles in four five days,” said Sanjay Khut, a youth from the village.According to the villagers, with the approaching monsoon season, they will need electricity for their irrigation work which makes them impatient to get the connection restored soon.In the same way, villagers of Zariya village of Sihor taluka in Bhavnagar last week offered their services to help PGVCL team to restore electricity.
The electricity connection to this village situated on a hill runs through a forest.
This makes it difficult for the discom engineers to create the infrastructure in a short period.
Ratansang Dodiya, a resident of the village said, “All the villagers — aged between 20 and 75 years — joined this work.
We also put our tractors at the disposal of PGVCL.
As a result, the restoration work requiring almost one week could be accomplished in one day and we got back power supply.” According to PGVCL sources, around 5,500 villages were affected in the cyclone and electricity has been restored in around 97 percent of these villages.
Tauktae-hit youth join hands to restore power in villages
