Maharashtra government orders probe into Mumbai power cut

MUMBAI: The Maharashtra government has ordered an investigation into Tuesday’s power outages, following tripping of Tata Power’s generating unit in Mumbai. Several parts of Mumbai plunged into darkness following the outages. Principal secretary, energy, has been asked to conclude the probe in seven days. The probe would fix responsibility and suggest short and long-term measures to prevent such failures.

The government ordered the inquiry after Congress and NCP ministers raised the issue at Wednesday’s Cabinet meeting and said the power outage led to anger among residents in the city, especially as it came during Ganeshutsav. Congress and NCP believe that the outage was part of a conspiracy to turn people’s ire towards the state government in the run up to the state assembly polls that would be held in October.

Coming in the wake of power companies like India Bulls and Tata Power reducing power supply to the state and subsequent prospect of a load shedding looming over the state, Cabinet members felt that the shortage in power was being ‘engineered’ to ensure that the people get angry with the Congress-NCP government in the run up to the assembly polls.

Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan while launching the Congress campaign on Monday had accussed the Narendra Modi government of creating a power shortage in Maharashtra. In the same meet, former Union home minister Sushil Kumar Shinde also accussed the Modi government of deliberately creating a shortage of power in non-BJP ruled states. Tripping of power in the Tata unit fuelled the state government’s fears of a conspiracy being hatched against it.