The whole of Navi Mumbai city came to standstill following the power outage owing to the failure of the power grid on Monday morning. From online classes to industrial units, the disruption in electricity supply severely affected all these services. The online classes were truncated due to mobile network issues and the disruption of broadband services.
However, there was no major impact at COVID care centre as there was power back up at almost every centre.
The power resumed between 12 and 1 pm gradually in the city. However, electricity supply was again disrupted within one hour. The power supply was again restored in the evening but again tripped off. Many parts of Navi Mumbai was under dark as power supply could not be restored by around 8 pm. An official from the MSEDCL Vashi office informed that the power was switched off due to load management issue. However, they were working to restore it soon. “There is a problem at 400KV Kalwa -Padgha. This line supplies power to Navi Mumbai and Thane area,” added the official.
The industrial units across Thane-Belapur and the Taloja area were severely affected due to blackouts as most of the units had stopped functioning. Despite the power supply being restored by noon, very few units resumed work due to frequent disruption in the supply.
At a time when online classes are the only option for teachers and students, the sudden disruption in the electricity supply forced them to cancel or curtail the duration of classes. Jagruti Patil, a faculty of a management college in the city said that only eight students could attend the class as many of them did not have internet access due to power failure. “Many of them suddenly disappeared from online classes and mobile network issue was one of them,” said Patil.
However, there was no major impact on the COVID care centre due to power failure as was power backup arrangement was available. Abhijit Bangar, municipal commissioner of Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation (NMMC) said that there was no major impact as most of the centres have already power back up. “We provided an alternate power supply arrangement wherever there was a problem. The situation is under control and has made enough arrangement in case there is a delay in restoration of power supply,” said Bangar. He added that ICUs are always on power backup.