Mumbai, June 30 (IANS) The worsening power crisis in South and Central Mumbai triggered a major political storm in the Maharashtra State Assembly on Tuesday, with legislators across party lines strongly confronting the government over recurring power outages lasting from eight to 12 hours.

Facing a united attack from both the ruling and Opposition benches, Assembly Speaker Rahul Narwekar took serious note of the situation and convened an emergency joint meeting to seek immediate accountability from the Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport (BEST) undertaking and press for a permanent solution to the issue.

Expressing deep displeasure over the prolonged blackouts, Speaker Narwekar sharply snubbed BEST management, stating that persistent power network failures severely tarnish the reputation of Mumbai as India’s commercial and financial capital. The Speaker criticised the utility for failing to preemptively upgrade its infrastructure to withstand the increased thermal stress brought on by climate change and global warming.

He remarked that the upgradation and strengthening of the distribution network should have been taken well in advance and directed BEST officials to provide its roadmap to improve power supply in the future.

The Speaker also asked BEST to submit the report on various measures taken to resolve the technical fault and the response time taken in call centres. He has summoned an urgent meeting of the city’s elected representatives, the BEST general manager, Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) commissioner, senior utility officers, and state government officials at Vidhan Bhawan, directing the administration to present a comprehensive, time-bound roadmap to fix the grid.

The legislative showdown erupted during a heated discussion on a Call Attention Motion jointly moved by Congress MLA Amin Patel (Mumbadevi) and Bharatiya Janata Party MLA Captain R Tamil Selvan (Sion Koliwada).

Selvan demanded immediate, effective steps from the administration, emphasising that ordinary citizens and small businesses are facing massive financial and physical losses due to unannounced distribution failures.

Congress’ Patel launched a stinging attack on the top management’s absolute apathy, alleging that neither the BEST general manager nor senior engineers bother to answer phone calls from public representatives during prolonged blackouts.

The Congress MLA said that BEST is reeling under acute financial stress, leaving it completely starved of funds required to strengthen its distribution network.

Highlighting the human cost and operational neglect under intense summer heat, Patel strongly criticised the systemic delays in detecting and repairing aging underground cable faults. He demanded that BEST immediately deploy a fleet of mobile generator units to restore temporary power and acquire advanced fault-finding technology to slash restoration windows.

To illustrate the sheer gravity of the crisis, Patel revealed to a stunned house that Samajwadi Party legislator Rais Shaikh was trapped inside a lift for over two and a half hours following a sudden power tripping incident.

Replying on behalf of the state government, Minister of State for Urban Development Madhuri Misal admitted that a historic surge in power load had led to widespread tripping and supply interruptions. However, Misal assured the house that the government has taken serious note of the legislative fury and that BEST is currently in the midst of executing high-priority measures to upgrade and modernise its distribution network.

–IANS

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