The electricity supply to Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation's (PCMC) Ravet raw water pumping station and Nigdi treatment plant was affected since 6 am.(Representative Image) A major fault on the 400 KV high-tension lines of Maharashtra State Electricity Transmission Company Limited (MSETCL) at Chakan and Lonikand substations led to power supply disruption across Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad from 6 am on Wednesday.
Sachin Talewar, MSETCL chief engineer, told The Indian Express: “From 4.30 am, there has been tripping at five points in the tower cable lines. Our engineers are working on a war footing to identify the faults and the supply is likely to be restored by 11 am.”
By 11 am, power was restored in some areas of the city but not everywhere. MSEDCL officials said they hoped to restore the supply in other parts of the city in one-and-a-half hours.
Water supply, traffic management and other services faced disruptions because of the outage.
Shouvik De, a resident of Bhumkar Chowk area of Hinjewadi, said that they had experienced an outage only for an hour from 6 am. “We have had supply by 7 am but we have reports about outage from other parts of the city,” he said.
Water supply in both Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad has been affected due to the power snap. The areas of Sinhagad Road, Satara road and Solapur road will be affected as the water pumping station of Vadgaon is shut due to power supply disruption, said Annirudh Pawaskar, incharge of the PMC water supply department.
But water supply to other areas of the city, mainly the central part, has not been affected. However, there are complaints from citizens that they are not able to lift water from underground water tanks to overhead water tanks of buildings due to the power cut, he said.
Meanwhile, electricity supply to Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation’s (PCMC) Ravet raw water pumping station and Nigdi treatment plant has been affected since 6 am. Water supply to the entire Pimpri-Chinchwad will be affected Wednesday and citizens are urged to use water sparingly, a PCMC release said.
The power outage has also badly affected the system of traffic signals across the city. Deputy Commissioner of Police (Traffic) Rahul Shrirame said: “All the signals are being manned manually because of the outage. Almost all of our strength of traffic police personnel and officials has been deployed at the traffic junctions. Additional strength is being deployed.”
Traffic police said some traffic squares with heavy volume may face some snarls during the peak hours.
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