Mumbai sees major power outage due to grid failure

The affected districts are Mumbai City, Mumbai Suburnan, Thane, Palghar and Raigad

The financial capital of Mumbai and the larger Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) went without power on Monday due to a major technical snag.

The movement of suburban and upcountry trains on the Central Railway (CR) and Western Railway (WR) was badly affected because of the power failure.

Flight operations at the Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport were normal and there was no impact on arrival and departures.

There was also an impact on the road traffic because the signaling system was affected.

There was no major impact on hospital operations in Mumbai – as this was a major concern because of the Covid-19 pandemic situation.

Mumbai City, Mumbai Suburban, Thane, Palghar and Raigad were impacted by this outage

Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray spoke to Energy Minister Dr Nitin Raut and reviewed the power situation.

In Nagpur, 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 – affecting the supply.

“Restoration operations are underway,” he said, adding that in couple of hours the situation is expected to be back to normal. “For us the priority is railway and hospitals,” he said.

The Maharashtra government has ordered a high-level probe into the incident and assured that responsibilities would be fixed.

One of the Mumbai distributors, Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport (BEST) said the power supply was interrupted due to Tata's incoming electric supply failure at around 10.15 hrs.

The power breakdown hit the lifeline of Mumbai - Central Railway and Western Railway - with all local trains en route till Vasai and Diva coming to a halt.

Hapless commuters at many locations jumped down and started walking down to the nearest suburban railway station and taking road transport. However, latest reports said that situation is coming back to normal.

Meanwhile, Mumbai’s Municipal Commissioner Iqbal Singh Chahal asked all hospitals to contact their transport garage officers to get enough diesel to operate generators for at least eight hours so that there are no power failures, especially in ICUs.

He also asked hospitals to update their respective control room heads about the situation every 30 minutes and directed the disaster management control room and concerned officers to coordinate the operation.