Mumbai Power Outage: Technical glitch causes disruption in multiple areas, including upscale localities

Mumbai: Lakhs of people across south Mumbai had to sweat it out for hours in the past few days owing to power outages in the connections provided by the Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport Undertaking (BEST).

On Friday, hundreds of consumers residing at Pedder Road, Altamount Road and the adjoining areas experienced an outage. The disruption was attributed to damage to an extra high voltage (EHV) feeder cable from Tata Power’s Mahalaxmi receiving station to the Cumbala Hill receiving substation due to the ongoing construction work at a metro station on Dr E Moses Road.

“There was no power for an hour or so on Friday in the area across Jaslok Hospital – from Film Division to Gamadia Road signal,” said Yogendra Vora, the secretary of the Pedder Road Residents’ Association.

Another affected citizen, Captain Ashok Batra from Altamount Road said, “There was a brief 20-minute outage on Thursday. It has happened two or three times but we don’t know the reason. We did not have any problem as such but people who get stuck inside the lift do face a dangerous situation.”

Churchgate, too, witnessed frequent power disruptions in the last few days. The residents were told that too much power was being drawn from the area. For some others in the same area, though, there was no disruption.

According to BEST officials, the disruption started at around 10.40 pm on May 18 but immediate action was taken. They said a power block was scheduled on Friday to enable regular restoration. However, this caused another disruption which was restored gradually by 3pm on Friday.

“Approximately, 80 to 90 personnel were involved in supply restoration and repairing of underground cable faults. Supply was normalised at 3 pm on Friday after repair of one cable,” informed a BEST official.

Load Shedding in affluent neighbourhoods of Bandra, Khar

Recently, posh localities of Bandra and Khar had witnessed power outages due to snag in power distribution system. Adani Electricity had promptly restored power for many customers then.