Tarun Karthick
Sri Vijaya Puram, 29 April 2025
An almost four-day-long blackout within the distant villages of Laxmi Nagar, Gandhi Nagar, and Shastri Nagar in Great Nicobar led to a significant protest on 28 April 2025, with pissed off residents blocking State Highway-2 and demanding fast motion from the authorities. The protest, which continued into the night time, was lastly referred to as off after assurances got by native officers, together with the Pramukh of Panchayat Samiti Campbell Bay, Mr. E. S. Rajesh.
The affected villages have been grappling with power energy points for over a 12 months, however the scenario reached a breaking level final week when energy provide grew to become nearly fully unavailable. Residents stated the erratic and infrequently absent electrical energy had disrupted their every day routines, compelled households into darkness, and severely hampered cell community connectivity — the one line of communication on this remoted area.
According to officers, the foundation reason for the persistent outages is the ageing Aerial Bunched Cable (ABC) infrastructure. In an try to resolve the difficulty, the Electricity Department had just lately changed roughly 2.5 kilometres of outdated cable with new traces. However, inside no-time, the brand new cables reportedly developed faults, plunging the three villages into darkness as soon as once more.
With no electrical energy and no concrete steps from the administration, residents took to the streets early Monday morning, blocking State Highway-2 at Gandhi Nagar and halting the motion of the STS bus headed towards Campbell Bay. The villagers demanded that diesel turbines be instantly deployed in every of the three villages to make sure backup energy throughout outages.
The protest gained momentum as villagers recalled how a small generator had beforehand been stationed at Gandhi Nagar through the pre-grid period post-tsunami. That generator, which had offered a number of hours of electrical energy every day, was eliminated years after the villages had been related to the Campbell Bay Power House. Residents had opposed its removing on the time, arguing it ought to stay as a contingency for frequent energy breakdowns — widespread as a result of falling bushes and the difficult terrain alongside the North-South Road.
Despite a number of makes an attempt by the administration to influence the protesters to finish the agitation, residents refused to budge. It was solely late at night time that Mr. E. S. Rajesh intervened and personally addressed the gathering. He conveyed the administration’s assurance that one generator every could be put in in Laxmi Nagar, Gandhi Nagar, and Shastri Nagar as an interim answer to the recurring outages.
Following Mr. Rajesh’s enchantment and dedication from the authorities, the villagers agreed to name off their protest. The administration has now begun making preparations to deploy the turbines and restore some semblance of normalcy to the affected areas.
For residents who’ve endured not simply days however months of unreliable electrical energy, the promise of devoted backup energy is a welcome reduction. Many now hope that with these new installations, their long-standing wrestle for secure energy provide might lastly see decision.
