Don't worry about Sunday outage, Reliance to western suburbs consumers

Power cos miffed by MMRDA's unilateral announcement on outage over Metro 7 that created panic in western suburbs

Reliance Energy on Thursday put out a statement telling consumers in the western suburbs not to worry about Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority's (MMRDA) power outage announcement for Sunday because it had made arrangements to reroute supply through an alternative network.

On Wednesday, MMRDA took power companies by surprise and sent consumers into a panic after unilaterally announcing the outage for June 24, between 3 am and 5 am in Vile Parle, Juhu, Andheri, Versova, Jogeshwari, Goregaon, Malad, Kandivli and Charkop to facilitate the erection of a Metro 7 'U' girder at Thakur Complex, Kandivli. The announcement did not speak about any alternative arrangements. A source close to the development said, "MMRDA had informed power companies about the outage plan, but went ahead and made the announcement before the companies could come up an alternative plan. This created unnecessary panic. They should have waited and added the arrangements to the announcement."

This is not the first time. On March 25, this year, MMRDA had announced 'dark hours' in Vile Parle, Juhu, Versova, Jogeshwari, Goregaon, Malad, Kandivli, and Charkop over the Metro-7 work. Reliance had then countered the announcement and offered relief to its consumers. MMRDA's joint project director (PR) Dilip Kawathkar said Wednesday's announcement was made in consultation with power companies. He said this time, Tata Power's network would get affected but not others, clearly unaware of the working of the city's integrated electricity network, where four suppliers serve 50 lakh plus consumers, with Reliance having the maximum numbers in the western suburbs.

"Tata Power has assured us that emergency services like hospitals would be powered by an alternative source," he said. But, Kawathkar could not clarify why MMRDA had failed to mention Tata's assurance and Reliance's preparedness in a statement issued on Wednesday. The Tata spokesperson was unavailable for comment. A Reliance Energy spokesperson said, "We will take every possible step to ensure Reliance Energy consumers are not inconvenienced during the planned transmission line work."

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