E-Paper
Pune city faced power cut for 1,496 hours in January
As per the rules, MSEDCL is required to publish the reliability index every month, but it did not published these indices on its website for the last three months after January 2024
In January 2024, there were 687 power outages, affecting 2.2 million consumers for over 1,496 hours, as per data shared by the Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company Limited (MSEDCL).
Pune circle includes Pune city, Pimpri-Chinchwad, and some rural areas in Pune district.
Ganeshkhind circle covers Pune city along with nearby industrial areas like Bhosari, Kothrud, Pimpri, and Shivaji Nagar. Rasta Peth covers all parts of Pune city except Kothrud and Shivaji Nagar, while Pune rural includes areas like Manchar, Rajgurunagar, and Mulshi.
As per reliability index data published on the website of MSEDCL, Rasta Peth, which covers maximum Pune city areas, had faced power failure 227 times. It had put 7, 86,017 consumers in dark for 533.08 minutes (8.88 hours).
Ganeshkhind circle has 13, 27, 797 consumers, out of which 4, 35,532 consumers had witnessed 164 incidents of power outage, and they were in dark for 368.66 minutes (6.14 hours).
The rural part of Pune city had faced a maximum 296 power interruptions and 1, 71,721 consumers were in dark for 593.75 minutes (9.89 hours).
As per the rules of Maharashtra Electricity Regulatory Commission (MERC), MSEDCL is required to publish the reliability index every month, but it did not published these indices on its website for the last three months after January 2024.
Vivek Velankar, civic activist, said, “MSEDCL only acts when there’s a complaint. They release three months’ worth of information quickly after complaints, showing they have it ready. But because it highlights MSEDCL’s issues, they avoid releasing it”
Rajendra Pawar, chief superintendent engineer of MSEDCL of Pune circle, said, “We will upload reliability index data as early as possible. Normally, we upload data in quarters.”
In Maharashtra state, there were 13,001 incidents of power outages in the state in January 2024. It had forced half a crore consumer of the state into darkness for a total of 23,434 hours.
