A week after the announcement by energy minister Nitin Raut on the formation of a high-level committee to probe the February 27 Mumbai power breakdown, there has been no movement on this front. The state energy department insiders said that no concrete discussion was held on this issue as it will be taken up with the energy secretary on Monday.
Mumbaikars faced over three hour power failure for the first time after the 18 hour breakdown in Mumbai that took place on October 12, 2020. Due to the tripping of MahaTransco’s 220 KV transmission line on Mulund-Trombay, the power supply to most parts of Mumbai was affected on February 27.
Raut had said that the concerned people will not be spared but his department has yet to get time to set up a committee.
Already three committees had probed the October 12, 2020 power failures in Mumbai suggesting an urgent need to strengthen the transmission network to evacuate power from outside to the city but there has been slow progress due to a couple of reasons including red tapism.
The technical committee appointed by the state government after the October 12, 2020 power failure in Mumbai following grid disturbances had stressed the need for coordination between the state load dispatch centre and utilities and implementation of an action plan to meet such emergencies and transmission constraints on a war footing.
The Action Taken Report prepared by the state-run power companies after the October 12, 2020 power outage in Mumbai had pitched for the increase in the installed generation capacity or embedded generation in Mumbai, establishment of a task force to apply modern technology and trends in the electricity city and its impact on Mumbai electricity network, and increased transmission capacity to evacuate more power into the city and step up maintenance of equipment. However, the implementation has yet to take off at full swing.
Moreover, the Central Electricity Authority in its report said since there is likelihood that Mumbai generation is to come down further by 2023-24, so under that condition with increased power demand of Mumbai area, the existing 220 kV network of Mumbai would be further stressed. So as to cope up with the deficit in the embedded generation, Mumbai area has to depend mainly on the external source to meet its requirement of supply of power.
