‘Possibility of sabotage can’t be ruled out’: Maharashtra minister on power outage

A grid failure had resulted in massive power outages in Mumbai and its suburban areas on Monday, stopping trains on tracks.

A spokesperson of Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company said on Tuesday evening that electricity supply in Mumbai has been completely restored.

A grid failure had resulted in massive power outages in Mumbai and its suburban areas on Monday, stopping trains on tracks.
A grid failure had resulted in massive power outages in Mumbai and its suburban areas on Monday,

Maharashtra energy minister Nitin Raut has said that the possibility of sabotage can’t be ruled out in the power outage incident in Mumbai on October 12.

“The possibility of foul play/sabotage can’t be denied in the power outage incident of Mumbai, Thane and Navi Mumbai on Monday,” Raut said in a tweet in Marathi.

A grid failure had resulted in massive power outages in Mumbai and its suburban areas on Monday, stopping trains on tracks, hampering those working from home and hitting the stuttering economic activity hard.

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

It took two hours for the power supply to resume for essential services; other pockets started getting power in a phase-wise manner.

A spokesperson of Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company (MSEDCL) said on Tuesday evening that power supply is not a constraint anymore, and electricity supply in Mumbai has been completely restored.

While the consumers served by BEST, Adani Electricity Mumbai and Tata Power were the earliest to get supply, those in north-eastern suburbs of Mulund and Bhandup, and adjoining cities of Thane and Navi Mumbai got power only past midnight.

Some pockets served by MSEDCL reported power cuts even on Tuesday, but the spokesman said those were due to localised issues, voltage fluctuations and in some cases because of road works as well.

Chief minister Uddhav Thackeray has ordered an enquiry 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.