Shillong, July 6: Students and staff are facing a harrowing time for over 32 hours with no power and water shortage at the North Eastern Hill University (NEHU) Shillong campus since Friday morning, with engineers struggling to restore power.

There has been no power in the campus from Friday, 6 am. As a result different departments, laboratories, hostels, pump houses and the entire associated infrastructure within the campus have been affected.

One of the major disruptions has been shortage of water in the campus because the pump house has not been running due to the power cut. Students and staff are now managing water from different sources for the time being.

The campus has its own power station (2500 KV) and the power is distributed to the sprawling campus through 15 sub stations. This power station is run and managed by engineers of the University.

Incidentally, most of the cable connection within NEHU has been laid underground. Such underground connections offer better reliability and security than overhead lines as they are less affected by external factors, such as storms, damage by trees, and animals. However, repair of these lines is time consuming and tricky.

“The main reason for the power failure is the rain. Water has percolated in the cable and we have to check all the sub stations to identify the problem,” an engineer said. Connections to nine substations have been checked and repaired so far.

Another reason for the power cut could be the civil engineering work that is ongoing within the campus. “Sometimes due to careless earth-cutting for the construction purpose, some of the underground cable connection gets snapped,” an official said.

The engineers from NEHU would be seeking the assistance of Meghalaya Energy Corporation Limited (MeECL) in managing and running the power in the near future and at times such as now, the official said.

Meanwhile, one of the students said: “we have been going to our friends and relatives houses around Shillong to charge mobile phones and freshen up. However, for those not having friends outside the campus, the situation is very dire.”

Read: Four severed bodies found tied together in Umpleng Village of East Jaintia Hills

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