Scheduled power outage, unheard of in Mumbai, catches suburbs unawares; suppliers blame unforgiving summer but power expert points to rise in consumers with skyscrapers replacing small buildings



Load shedding has affected most parts of the eastern and western suburbs since May 18. File pic

Mumbai is burning the midnight oil like never before and her residents are struggling to cope with what is no longer an anomaly - long and intermittent power cuts. The high-rises dotting the city and the suburbs are apparently to blame.

Since May 18, large parts of the city and suburbs have seen planned load shedding or scheduled power outage, something mostly unheard of in the city that never sleeps. Some of these episodes have allegedly lasted 15 hours owing to rising power demand in summer. The outages have affected over 10 lakh consumers.

Mumbai's power demand has touched 3,500MW, 400MW more than the usual, this summer. Of this, the suburbs consume around 2,100MW. Poor supply networks and transmission lines are not able to bear this increasing load.

On May 18, the power outages started at Malad East and Goregaon East. It hit Kurla West, Santacruz, Bandra East and Vile Parle West the day after. Intermittent outages that lasted eight hours then had in their grip Malad West May 20, Bail Bazaar and Wadia Estate area of Kurla West on May 21. On May 22, Bandra West, Khar West and Santacruz were affected.

On Monday, RInfra said there was a spurt in demand owing to the summer heat that resulted in multiple abnormalities and necessitated rotational load shedding. To make matters worse, a fire broke out on May 23 at Malad West.

On May 24, Borivli East and Linking Road in Santacruz West also began to face the brunt of power disruptions.

Why no warning?

Residents in many suburban areas complain of being taken by surprise by the outages.

On the intervening night of May 24-25, those residing in between Poisar and Mira Road suffered a power cut in the middle of the night. To RInfra's credit, it sent out a message that power would be restored in around three hours, but residents feel a warning should have been sent out.

"I could not sleep the whole night. There were intermittent power cuts," said N Siddhaye, a resident of Vile Parle.

Sandip Ohri, who runs his business at Goregaon East, said he faced power cuts even in the afternoon. "It is surprising that RInfra did not anticipate the power surge in summer."

Imran U, an Aarey resident, said in the last two months, the area has seen two power cuts, one lasting around 15 hours.

No dearth

Mumbai pays R390 crore towards electricity bills for 24x7 supply. This amount is paid to Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company Ltd, which keeps a buffer of 500MW for demand surges.

Ashok Pendse, a power expert, said the authorities cannot claim to have been caught unprepared. "There is no shortage of power as Mumbai has touched 3800MW-plus during previous summers. However, there are pockets where small buildings have been replaced by skyscrapers, resulting in an increase in users and resultant system overload."

Sources said ACs contribute to one-third of the power demand. Power experts claim that the network of power cables, transmission lines and substations is poor and unable to take the additional load. The spokesperson for RInfra sought more time to comment when mid-day reached out. Tata Power claimed that it hasn't received any complaint.

Reliance Energy spokesperson responds:

"Persistent summer heat coupled with pre-monsoon digging work by civic agencies had resulted in some network abnormalities. We had ensured immediate restoration of power supply through alternate sources for our customers’ convenience by deploying DG sets and arranging back-feeding, while our field teams worked on war-footing to rectify the abnormalities. The power supply situation has already returned to normal," the spokesperson said.