Mumbai : General manager of the BEST has ordered an internal inquiry to investigate the cause that led to delay in restoration of power supply to thousands of households which were left in the dark following heavy showers on June 19.
The decision to conduct a probe was taken during committee meeting held on Thursday when members threatened to adjourn the meeting if no action will be taken. The BEST management faced ire of the committee members who alleged that BEST had miserably failed in doing its duty and thousands of calls to their call centre about power failure went unanswered.
On Friday, over 6,000 households were left in the dark as problems cropped up in power supply cable due to heavy rains lashing the city. The problem further aggravated after power supply to several of these households was not restored even till today.
Committee member Ravi Raja said, “Power cables used by the BEST are of poor quality. These cables break off even in those areas where there is no digging carried out by external agency or even when power load is less. It took the BEST three to four days to restore power which should have been done in 12 hours.”
Another committee member, Kedar Hombalkar, said, “In the time when BEST is facing tough competition from Reliance and Tata they cannot afford to come up with excuses that power could not be restored as there was no staff and transportation available due to heavy rains.”
General manager of BEST, Jagdish Patil, said, “The work of the call centre had been outsourced and we are working on improving it. I have personally visited the call centres and even called one of the persons to my office for correct the way they work. We will conduct an internal inquiry and reports will be submitted within a month.”
