ORGANOGRAM
Bhutan Power Corporation Limited (BPC) was formed as an offshoot of the erstwhile Department of Power, the then Ministry of Trade and Industry and was launched as Public Utility Company on 1st July 2002 with an objective that the corporatization of the utility functions would lead to greater efficiency and better delivery of electricity supply services in the power sector.
Later, the Ownership was transferred to Druk Holding and Investment Limited (DHI), the commercial arm of the Royal Government of Bhutan, established in 2007 upon issuance of Royal Charter in 2007 “to hold and manage the existing and future investments of the Royal Government for the long term benefit of the people of Bhutan”
Jomotshangkha Dungkhag under Samdrupjongkhar Dzongkhag, located at the south-eastern corner of the country, shares its border with Assam and Arunachal Pradesh in India. The three gewogs of the Dungkhag, namely Langchenphu, Serthi and Lauri had to stay without electricity supply for 18 days starting from 10th September 2020. The supply could be restored only on 27th September 2020. The supply interruption affected a total of 2645 customers.
The electricity to Jomotshangkha Dungkhag is supplied through a 33 kV line emanating from the 132/33 kV substation in Phuntshothang (Bhangtar). With over 260 km in length and traversing through rugged terrain, dense vegetation and several river on the way, the line has 175 transformers connected to it.
When the above line tripped on 10th September 2020 at around 9:22 pm, the electricity supply to all three gewogs under Jomotshangkha got interrupted. Early morning on the following day, two teams were dispatched for patrolling the line, one from Phuntshothang and other from Jomotshangkha to find out the fault. The patrolling effort was hampered in the initial two days due to continuous downpour and swollen rivers and extra reinforcement had to be made.
The patrol team finally located the fault on 15th September 2020. Two numbers of double pole structures between Borlapam and Razor Top (23 km from Jomotshangkha) had been completely damaged and snapped to the ground.
Reaching materials to site for carrying out necessary repair was the next challenge for BPC. As manual transportation was not an option, BPC requested the Jomotshagkha Dungkhag Administration and Project Dantak for clearing the road towards Borlapam. The rough road till Borlapam was cleared on 21st September 2020 and materials like poles, fittings and conductors along with a total of 30 manpower were swiftly transported to site in a tractor. Additional backup and logistics support for the laborers at site was dispatched on 24th September 2020.
The 33 kV line, which tripped on 10th September 2020, was finally charged on 27th September 2020 at 5:52 hours after eighteen days of continuous effort by all concerned. We would like to sincerely apologize to all our valued customers for the inconvenience caused without electricity for eighteen days. We hope to minimize such inconveniences in future.
We would like to thank the Dungkhag Administration of Jomotshangkha for helping BPC in arranging necessary logistics despite of COVID-19 restrictions in place. We would also like to thank all others who helped our team at site in restoring the supply to Jomotshangka.