Port Blair, Dec. 14: There was a power failure on 12.12.2012 at 01.00 AM due to occurrence of fault in one of the Underground cable line connecting Chatham Power House, Garacharma Sub-Station and 20 MW IPP, Bambooflat. This new underground cable was commissioned recently by POWERGRID (PGCIL) and is under guarantee period.

In the process of power restoration, due to test charging of faulty cable, the power supply got interrupted two/three times causing inconvenience to general public.

The system was restored by running the 20 MW IPP, Bambooflat, on isolation mode feeding the load of rural areas only. The Chatham Power House, Phoenix Bay Power House and Hiring Power Houses were in a separate grid feeding the feeders of Municipal area.

The department is working to rectify the faulty cable and till its rectification the Tie line between Chatham Power House and Garacharma Sub-Station is fed through overhead lines.

It is anticipated that such type of total power failure will not occur in future. However, in case of any failure in the transmission system all efforts will be made to restore power supply within 10-15 minutes.

The power supply failure was purely due to fault in transmission line and not due to shortage of generation capacity. As on date there is sufficient power available with the department. The inconvenience caused is regretted, explained the Superintending Engineer, Electricity Department today in a communication.