Power cuts in summer irk Mumbaiites

While citizens said the outages have been lasting up to an hour, sometimes five times a day, most electricity firms have attributed the cuts to the on-going Metro and infrastructure works in the city.

If the sweltering heat was not enough, unannounced power cuts in different pockets of the city, such as Mulund, Vikhroli, Thane, Andheri, Lokhandwala, Goregaon and Versova, in the past two weeks have irked Mumbaiites. While citizens said the outages have been lasting up to an hour, sometimes five times a day, most electricity firms have attributed the cuts to the on-going Metro and infrastructure works in the city.

In summer, Mumbai’s power demand goes upto 3,400 MW. (HT FIle/Representational Image)

Different electricity firms supply electricity to these areas. In Vikhroli and Mulund in the eastern suburbs and Thane, where the state-run Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company Limited (MSEDCL) supplies electricity, the power outages have stretched between 30 minutes to an hour. Mihir Palan, a resident of Tambe Nagar, Mulund, said, “Last week, there was a power cut five times in one day. It’s the same issue every summer.” Another resident of Mulund, Pooja Venkat, who was visiting Thane, said, “We had power cuts on Tuesday and Wednesday for 30 minutes.”

However, PS Patil, chief public relations officer, MSEDCL, claimed that there was no load-shedding in these areas. “These are local technical problems. There is no load-shedding anywhere in the city.” An MSEDCL official said on-going Metro works had possibly damaged cables, leading to the power cuts.

In Lokhandwala, Goregaon and Versova, electricity is supplied by Adani Electricity Mumbai Ltd (AEML). “Last week, we had power cuts throughout the day and twice in the night. On Thursday, we did not have power for an hour in the afternoon,” said Sawan Dutta, a Versova resident. Founder of the Andheri-Lokhandwala-Oshiwara Residents’ Association, Dhaval Shah, also said he was told that Metro works have led to the outages. “We’ve been getting a lot of complaints. We were told the Metro work, which includes shifting of utilities, have led to these problems.”

An AEML spokesperson said their average Service Availability Index for February and March was 99.99 % and 99.98%. “However, sometimes certain pockets face unplanned outages owing to infrastructure upgradation, damaging supply lines. In such cases, we take steps to restore services immediately. To avoid such outages, we have deployed dedicated teams for cable-patrolling.”