Maharashtra State Commission to hold suo motu hearing on Mumbai power outage on Wednesday

The rare power outage brought the city to a grinding halt on October 12, delaying suburban train services and crippling work-from-home set up adopted by people amid the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) outbreak.

The Maharashtra Electricity Regulatory Commission (MERC) will on Wednesday conduct a suo motu hearing on the Mumbai power outage. The rare power outage brought the city to a grinding halt on October 12, delaying suburban train services and crippling work-from-home set up adopted by people amid the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) outbreak.

Vehicles travel past a commercial building at the Bombay Kurla Complex (BKC) in Mumbai. India’s financial capital saw its biggest power outage in decades because of a grid failure, disrupting transport networks and hitting trading volume in equities and bond markets. (Bloomberg)

The hearing, slated to begin on Wednesday morning, will be via electronic method, the MERC said in a statement.

The areas affected by the October 12 power outage included Mumbai, Navi Mumbai, Thane and other parts of the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR). The suburban train services were completely stopped with Central and Western Railway suspending services. Additionally, the train services on the Central Railway were also suspended.

According to a preliminary report received by the state commission, Maharashtra State Load Dispatch Center (MSLDC) has explained the antecedent conditions, sequence of events, affected load and status of recovery of the system leading to grid failure.

The outage were attributed to tripping at a sub-station of state-run transmission company MSETCL.

An enquiry was ordered by chief minister Uddhav Thackeray into the incident, which happened when one of the lines was undergoing planned maintenance.

The city had last seen a massive power outage in June 2018.