Power outage in Grant Road leaves residents fuming

BEST blames staff crunch for delay in resolving problem

A power outage in Grant Road that would have usually taken the Brihanmumbai Electric and Supply Transport (BEST) workers 30 minutes to deal with, took several hours to resolve on Friday evening.

While angry residents expressed their grievances on social media, the BEST said it was helpless due to the ongoing strike.

Several pockets of the area were left without electricity between 3 p.m. and 7 p.m. According to BEST officials, areas around Novelty Cinema, D.B. Marg police station, Chhota Sonapur and Lakda Bazaar were affected due to a trip in the line.

Online anger

Locals alleged that the BEST told them the supply would not be restored for two days.

“No electricity in and around #grantroad Mumbai. Best officials say we are under staffed so might take 2 days to get back the electricity (sic),” resident Zakir Hussain tweeted. Priyanka Shah tweeted, “Electricity in Grant Road east is gone for more than 5 hours… no one doing any action what to do?? Shops are unable to do work. @MumbaiPolice Best is also not responding.”

Officials said the issue was resolved within two hours. “We received complaints from residents around 3:30 p.m. We could not respond instantly, as we were very few in number at the office. Those of us who were present fixed the problem around 7 p.m. Usually, it does not take us that long, but many workers were not present due to the strike,” a BEST official from the Grant Road office told The Hindu .

Local corporator Arvind Dudhwadkar said, “Residents called me as well. The supply took some time to restore as there were fewer workers. I called them up to check. The issue was resolved in the evening.”