Mumbai power cut: Electricity outage reported from parts of city; grid failure at Tata Power to blame, say officials

Several parts of Mumbai saw a blackout on Monday morning, and several people took to Twitter to complain about the electricity snag.

A statement by BEST electricity read —

The electric supply is inttruptted due to TATAs incoming electric supply faiure.
Inconveniences is regretted.

— BEST Electricity (@myBESTElectric) October 12, 2020

The disaster control room run by the city civic body said there has been a “central grudge failure of Tata Power at Kalwa”, and it will take up to an hour to restore supply.

In a video statement, Maharashtra’s Power Minister Nitin Raut said maintenance work was on in Maharashtra State Electricity Transmission Company’s 400 kv Kalwa-Padgha centre when the technical fault happened in circuit number 2, which was taking the entire load at the time.

“A major part of Mumbai and Thane has been affected due to this, power will be restored in 30-45 minutes,” he said.

“In view of interruption in traction power at 1005 hrs due to grid failure of Tata Power company, services between Churchgate and Borivili are suspended. It shall be resumed as soon as traction power supply is restored,” Western Railway tweeted.

Central Railway officials also called it a “grid failure” which resulted in a stoppage of services.

“The electric supply is interrupted due to TATAs incoming electric supply failure,” BEST said.

Officials at Tata Power were not immediately available for comment.

Another discom official also said that it is a grid failure and efforts are underway to restore power supply at the earliest with the help of Maharashtra State Electricity Transmission Company and Power Grid Corporation.

The local trains, which are called the lifeline of the megapolis with over 70 lakh commuters daily, currently ferry only essential employees to work places.

Power outages were reported from suburbs like Thane, Panvel, Dombivili and Kalyan as well.

BSE and NSE, the oldest and the largest bourses, respectively, which are based in the city, also reported power outages, but added that their operations are continuing normally.

A spokesperson of the Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport said operations are normal.

BMC commissioner IS Chahal directed hospitals to contact their respective SWM transport GARAGE officers to get enough supply of diesel for at least eight hours so that there is no power failures in hospitals, especially ICUs.
According to News18 Lokmat, there has been multiple tripping of lines and transformer (Kalwa-padghe and Khargar ICTs) supplying power to Mumbai system. A total of 360 MW supply in Mumbai and suburbs is said to be affected. Restoration work is in process.

A similar blackout was seen in 2014, when many parts of Mumbai faced power outages for several hours after a unit of Tata Power's Trombay plant tripped.

With inputs from PTI