The recent power outage at SoBo hurled a shower of doubts on the state's power supplier.
The fire that broke out at a South Mumbai BEST's substation left a cable burnt and thousands of residents cut off from power for almost two days in a row.
What the incident brought to fore was the fact that the island city's power suppliers are left twiddling their thumbs in case of a crisis and the abject absence of a disaster management plan.
That apart, the apathy of the BEST officials so evident in their frustration-laced irate responses to affected citizens because they had been 'working all night to resolve the crisis,' didn't make things better anyway.
Power supply throughout Colaba right upto Navy Nagar was hit adversely bringing South Mumbai to a screeching halt leaving people seething and sweltering.
Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport Undertaking (BEST) officials said that one of Tata Power's cables had burnt, causing a fire at a transformer in the Backbay substation.
Tall buildings in Cuffe Parade and Colaba were hit badly as elevators remained defunct; those with pregnant, elderly and sick inmates were hit adversely too.
'Surprise' was the main culprit in this case, considering that it’s 'the knowledge' of loadshedding which provide suburban consumers the opportunity of gearing up to meet eventuality, even look for backup options, SoBo's consumers were left in the dark, literally!
Worse still was the BEST officials' response to the situation which, to put it politely, "was deplorable, " by all standards.
South Mumbai's stake to it's 'preferred zone' status risks being threatened should a repeat of this nature occur. That ‘never happened before,’ line is being repeated too often for comfort.
Among lessons learnt, residents have begun toying with renewable power options ... the authorities - on their part - baldy need to learn to talk and...walk the talk!
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