“The report has said the outage happened due to cascade tripping. The Talegaon Kalwa line was damaged in heavy rains on October 10. This led to a load on three other lines,” Principal Secretary in the Energy Department, Dinesh Waghmare said. A report by a technical audit committee set up to probe the October 12, 2020 power outage in Mumbai concluded that the hours-long breakdown occurred due to cascade tripping, and not due to cyber sabotage by Chinese hackers as suggested by an international cybersecurity firm and a Maharashtra minister.
The report, prepared by the eight-member committee headed by Professor B Fernandes of IIT-Mumbai’s Department of Electrical Energy, was submitted in November 2020. “The report has said the outage happened due to cascade tripping. The Talegaon Kalwa line was damaged in heavy rains on October 10. This led to a load on three other lines,” Principal Secretary in the Energy Department, Dinesh Waghmare, told The Indian Express.
There is no mention of sabotage in the report, Waghmare said. However, in its recommendations, the committee said the Centre’s protocol to prevent cyberattacks must be strictly followed, he said. The energy department submitted an action taken report to the Cabinet Wednesday.
In March, a report in The New York Times said Recorded Future, a US-based cyber security company, had suggested a link between the Galwan clash and the Mumbai power outage. The report mentioned a “broad Chinese cybercampaign against India’s power grid”. The Chinese Foreign Ministry had rejected the report as “highly irresponsible”.
Then state home minister Anil Deshmukh had said preliminary probe findings indicated the “blackout” could “probably have occurred” due to “attempts” by unidentified foreign agencies.
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