The students of Mushtifund Aryaans Higher Secondary School had the privilege and the honours of meeting Mr. Nilesh Cabral, the Power minister of Goa on 11/02/2020.He was warmly welcomed and introduced by the Director, Vyankatesh Prabhudesai. He started off by informing us that Goa doesn’t produce its own electricity rather it buys it from its neighbouring states. Most of the power generated in India is coal based but the Government has made it mandatory to produce 12% of the total requirement through a renewable source of energy eg; Solar energy .He then told us how electricity is supplied to Goa via the primary electrical grid of India. He then shed some light on solar roof tops ,their benefits and also guided us on the installation of the same. He highlighted the benefits of having an alternate means of production of electricity, and how it would reduce the load on the Government.

We were highly motivated by his contribution to this cause, and it also motivated us to take a step towards it. High profile Power Minister informed us that, Goa receives ample supply of power so much so that we sell the extra power remaining to other states(at the same price of course!!!). He spent a great deal of his session familiarizing us with the terms related to the electrical supply, the parts of an electricity bill and what they depend on, as well as the different aspects of the field which in turn helped us to perceive what we were paying the government for, as well as the difficulties and challenges faced by the government in attempting to manage the electrical supply throughout the state. He briefed us upon the One Grid One Nation scheme also. He then diverted his attention to the construction of underground electrical connections and their benefits like easy maintenance, etc, and the necessity to remove the overhead cables in order to fully assess and unleash the potential of the underground cables. But just as every coin has two sides to it, this too has its own disadvantages especially in a place like Goa where the infrastructure of roads and pathways are ever changing. He also highlighted on the crisis of detection of any fault in the underground cables as this causes great inconvenience not only to the government but also to the people in the area and this mainly because of the same old primitive and tedious method of digging up the earth and resolving the Gordian knot.

He then gave us some important insight on matters like electricity theft, irregular drops in voltage, policies of government in handling such matters , the ones which are currently in action as well as the ones which ought to be brought into action sooner than ever, the working of smart meter was also explained clearly by the Minister. At the end he talked about the various laws and gave us his views on the same convincing us that in a democratic country like India this is how the things work (whether you like it or not!!!) .

He answered all the queries raised effortlessly and gave satisfactory answers to each and every question raised. Last but not the least he told us that if we want to receive electricity 24*7 then we need to sacrifice something after all nothing good comes without a price to pay. So the way I see it, If you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain. I would like to thank our Director Sir VPD for arranging such an amazing session for us students.

-Prepared by Swarada Deshmukh, Student of STD XI, MAHSS