BEST electricity consumers face power cuts

Consumers of the Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport (BEST) undertaking faced power cuts on Monday after the rain caused cable faults.

The BEST undertaking received complaints of faults in 60 power cables supplying electricity, mostly in areas such as Dadar and Girgaum. Since Thursday, the BEST undertaking has been struggling to fix over 200 power cables damaged by heavy rain, causing a power outage in over 16,000 homes. By Monday morning, the BEST was able to bring this figure down to 138 cables, affecting about 5,000 electricity connections, a BEST spokesperson said. Jagdish Patil, BEST general manager, said, “The only long-term solution to this problem is digging up concrete roads and fixing or replacing the cables. But, this is not possible everywhere because it will further inconvenience people during the monsoon.”

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Patil said that the BEST undertaking has laid at least 100 kilometre overhead cables since Thursday evening to restore power supply. The organisation, which distributes power to the island city from Colaba to Sion and Mahim, mostly has an underground electrical network.

“When any kind of trenching or road work takes place, cables at times get ruptured. These cables fault when water seeps through cracks. We face this problem every year, but it is more severe this year due to frantic construction activity, followed by heavy rains,” Patil said.

Between December and April, the BMC had approved the trenching of 598 roads all over Mumbai. The Congress’s Ravi Raja, a BEST committee member, said, “It is completely an administrative failure. There is a severe shortage of technicians, jointers, vehicles.”

mumbai.newsline@expressindia.com