BHUBANESWAR: Even as the extremely severe cyclonic storm Fani has caused massive devastation to power infrastructure in Puri and Khurda districts, power supply will be restored in emergency services like Capital Hospital, city airport, railway station, water distribution points and transmission stations in the city by Monday morning. 

Power restoration process to domestic consumers in the city and periphery will be started in a phased manner from Monday evening while in Puri the power restoration process will begin from Tuesday. 

“Power distribution and transmission systems in Puri and Khurda has totally devastated. As many as 1.56 lakh electricity poles have been uprooted. Huge manpower and resources are required to continue the restoration. Over 4000 personnel are working on war footing to ensure quick restoration,” said state energy secretary Hemanta Sharma. 

On loss to power infrastructure due to the cyclone, Sharma said it would be more than Rs 1200 crore according to preliminary estimation though the final figure will go up. 

Among other Fani affected districts, power supply has been totally restored in Ganjam, Jajpur and Balasore while 90 per cent supply has been restored in Bhadrak while half of the work has been completed in Jagatsinghpur, Kendrapada and Cuttack. 

Sharma said the major challenges for them is to rebuild the power infrastructure in Puri and Khurda, where the transformers and substations have been totally damaged in the cyclone due strong wind speed. Besides, many of the electricity poles have been damaged due to uprooting of large trees. 

According to official sources, in Bhubaneswar alone, more than 40,000 new poles are required while the energy department has already procured 20,000 new poles from the Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL). 

“Wherever, there is a need to replace the pole, we have decided to erect new poles. In rest of the places, we can manage with the existing poles,” said Sharma. 

To expedite the process, the state energy department has engaged over 500 personnel from West Bengal and Andhra Pradesh through the Power Grid Corporation of India Limited, National Thermal Power Corporation and other sources. Additional manpower from other distribution companies like Wesco, Nesco and Southco have also been pressed into action in Bhubaneswar and Puri to start electricity restoration. 

The energy secretary urged the consumers to be careful while switching on domestic connections after restoration of power supply. 
He requested to check that there is no short circuit and lose ends which may lead to accidents. During cyclone Phailin that hit the state in October 2013, the department had received many cases of electricity-related accidents due to non-following of standard operating procedure. 

Service lines of almost all households in Puri and Bhubaneswar cities have been damaged, he added.