Visakhapatnam: Recent heavy rains in the city has temporarily interrupted the ongoing underground electricity network (UEN) work.By this time nearly 20% of the work should have to be completed, but only 10% has been completed, said project officials on Tuesday to TOI.Confirming this to TOI, B Ramesh Prasad, executive director of project implementation unit (PIU) of the World Bank-funded UEN, said that they started the work two months back. As on date, work on only 19 kilometre stretch has been completed.Prasad revealed that the work was divided into three parts for now and are worth Rs 710 crore. Only five kilometres has been covered under part one, 10 kilometers under part two and four kilometers under part three, he added. The fourth part is yet to begin. The total cost of all four parts put together is Rs 830 crores, he said.As per the World Bank, nearly 40% of the work should be completed by October, 2018. As per their internal target, nearly 30% of the work should be completed by August 15, 2018.“But, owing to unfavourable weather conditions like low pressures, heavy rains etc have stalled work for nearly a week. We will manage in spite of the delay,” Prasad added.The project is presently on along the city beach areas like Pandurangapuram, Chinna Waltair, All India Radio station, Harbour Park, MVP Colony, RK beach and others.Speaking to TOI, one of the supervisors at Pandurangapuram said the rains and unfavourable weather slowed down their pace.“Rainwater entered into the pits we dig along the road as part of the project. This delayed the work,” the supervisor said.Officials from the India Meteorological Department (IMD) told TOI that the southwest monsoon is presently active. Rains associated with cloudy weather conditions would continue to prevail for the next few days. The city beach area received heavy rainfall of 73mm recently and nearly 25mm rainfall on Monday.“On Tuesday, the beach area received 7mm of rainfall. Light to moderate rainfall would occur on Wednesday,” the IMD officials added.

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