Mumbai Power Outage Live: Power Supply Restored In Most Areas, For Local Trains

Power supply was restored in most parts of India’s financial capital after its worst blackout in decades disrupted transport networks and briefly hit trading volume in bond markets.

Mumbai, home to India’s biggest stock exchanges, financial regulators and the central bank, witnessed a power failure at around 10:00 am. Power tripping—or an overload in the circuit that forces the system to shut down automatically—was the reason for the grid’s collapse, according to local power utility Tata Power Co. Ltd.

The city of 20 million people accounts for about 6% of the $2.9 trillion economy. While Mumbai has largely been immune to daily power outages that plague large swathes of the nation, a long and widespread blackout in the capital of India’s most industrialised state would make it harder for Prime Minister Narendra Modi to revive an economy that shrank 24% in the quarter ended June.

“In my 18 years in Mumbai, I haven’t come across such a widespread disruption right in the middle of the busiest time for equity markets,” said Chokkalingam G., chief investment officer at Equinomics Research & Advisory Ltd. in Mumbai, whose home still didn’t have power at 4:00 pm. “Especially during a pandemic a recurrence of such an event isn’t good.”

Power supply was restored to essential services such as trains and hospitals by about 2:00 pm, according to local authorities.

Here are the latest news updates on the Mumbai power cut situation:

• Date of incident: 12.10.2020
• Time of incident reported: 1015 hours
• Incident reported by: BEST Supply Control
• Incident : Power Failure Level- L0
• Details: Electric power failure due to central grid failure of Tara Power at Kalwa. It will take 45 min to 1 hour to restore the supply.
• Impact: (1) Failure of Electric Supply all over Mumbai City and suburbs; (2) Train traffic of all lines Central, Eastern & Western disrupted.

Source: BMC PRO

Suburban train services were disrupted due to the power outage in in Mumbai. “We are stuck here since 10:00 am,” a commuter said at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus. “We are clueless about how long we will have to wait here." ANI

The BMC commissioner has told hospitals to maintain enough supply of diesel to run operations for at least eight hours. The disaster control and CE M&E are on standby, in case the power outage persists for more than one hour.

All payment and settlement systems are working normally, according to a person familiar with the matter. A banker working at a large private bank said the lender has moved to back up systems.

According to State Energy Minister Nitin Raut:

Maharashtra State Electricity Transmission Co.’s 400 KV Kalwa-Padgha GIS circuit one was taken for repair and maintenance today due to which the load was on second unit circuit. There was a technical problem in second unit, which led to major power outage across Mumbai Metropolitan Region.

“Our staff is working on it and power will be restored in an hour or 45 minutes,” he said.

Stock exchanges BSE and NSE continue to function normally. BSE also carried out the listing ceremony for Mazagon Shipbuilders in the morning, an exchange spokesperson said.

“There is a power failure in south mumbai. Exchange is working normally. The listing ceremony was concluded successfully for Mazagon Shipbuilders today morning, the spokesperson said. “NSE is functioning normally, a spokesperson for the bourse said.

Many traders said the activity wasn’t much affected but if the outage is prolonged then it could impact trading volumes. “Some traders are facing issues” as they have limited battery backup, said Deepak Jasani, head of retail research at HDFC Securities Ltd. The power outage has also affected broadband connections for some and they’re not being able to trade, he added.

Bond traders said the outage is having an impact with trading volumes narrowing with the 10-year volumes at Rs 3,400 crore compared to Rs 5,000-6,000 crore. The yield on benchmark 10-year bonds fell two basis points to 5.91% while the S&P BSE Sensex was up 0.5% as of 10:45 am in Mumbai.

Due to Grid failure at Padgha-Kalwa there is total failure of electricity in Mumbai. The restoration work is in progress, BEST Electricity tweeted.

According to Tata Power’s tweet:

“At 10.10 am there was simultaneous substation tripping in MSETCL's Kalwa, Kharghar, causing a huge dip in frequency in the Mumbai transmission system which led to tripping of Mumbai power supply. Restoration work in is in progress to bring supply from the three hydro units and Trombay units once MSETCL transmission lines are connected. “

“NPCI would like to inform that all our systems are live and functioning normally, unaffected by the power failure in the region, a spokesperson for the National Payments Corporation of India said.

After a brief cut power has been restored at central office and most of our branches, CS Setty, managing director at State Bank of India, said. “Operations back to normal.”

Power supply has been restored in areas of Bandra, Chembur, Lower Parel in Mumbai.

Suburban train services on the Central Line have also been restored, according to ANI. Suburban train services on the Western Line have also been restored.

According to Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation,

• Date of incident: 12.10.2020
• Time of incident reported : 1015 hours
• Time of Update reported : 1230 hours
• Incident reported by: BEST Supply Control
• Incident : Power Failure Level- L0
• Details: Electric power failure due to Central grid failure at Kalwa.
• Update : Power supply restored at Municipal Head Office, A ward , B ward, C Ward, D ward , H/W ward, R/C, S ward. Western Railway restored at 1220 hrs.

Most branches have seen power restored. Our ATMs have an hour's worth of backup power, which is why there was no major disruption in our network,” an HDFC Bank spokesperson said on Monday. “All operations are functioning normally now.”

Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray has spoken with State Power Minister Nitin Raut and the BMC commissioner over grid failure in Mumbai and gave directions for its restoration as soon as possible, his office has said. ANI

The power supply has been restored for railways, Maharashtra Power Minister Nitin Raut was quoted as saying by ANI. “Power to other emergency services, like hospitals, are also being restored.”

Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray has taken serious cognisance of the power outage in Mumbai Metropolitan Region and ordered an immediate probe into it.

State Energy Minister Nitin Raut also said the reasons behind the technical snag that caused power failure in parts of the MMR will be probed once the electricity supply is restored. Thackeray discussed the issue with Raut and asked him to make immediate efforts to restore supply in the MMR.

An official statement said Thackeray took serious note of the power outage and ordered an immediate probe into it.

Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray has called for an “important meeting” at 4:00 pm at his official residence to discuss the power outage in Mumbai, his public relations officer has said.

According to Union Power Minister RK Singh, the Mumbai power outage was a result of problems with the state gpower rid, and the national grid is fine.

"We are sending a team from the central authority to Mumbai to sit down with state transmission authority and find out where the problem was and how it started," ANI quoted Singh as saying in a tweet. “There will be a discussion on the steps to be taken so it doesn't happen again."

"The power supply (in Mumbai) has been restored substantially—out of 2000 MW that went off, about 1900 MW has been restored, the remaining will be restored soon," he said. ANI

“All our office buildings have backup power for 24 hours and hence, centralised critical banking operations like treasury and capital market operations are not affected, Rohit Rao, chief communication officer at Kotak Mahindra Group, said. “There could be some delay for transactions emanating from branches, though many of our branches also have backup power and power supply is gradually getting restored in the city.”

A central team comprising officials from the Central Electricity Authority would be sent to Mumbai to study the power breakdown in the city on Monday and assist the state government in finding solutions to such situations, Press Trust of India quoted Power Minister RK Singh as saying in a report.

"A central team will visit Mumbai to identify problem and to find out possible solutions against such breakdowns," Singh said in a statement issued by the Ministry of Power on Monday evening. PTI

Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray on Monday took serious cognisance of the power outage in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region and ordered an immediate probe into it.

State Energy Minister Nitin Raut also said the reasons behind the technical snag that caused power failure in parts of the MMR will be probed once the electricity supply is restored.

Thackeray discussed the issue with Raut and asked him to make immediate efforts to restore supply in the MMR.

An official statement said Thackeray took serious note of the power outage and ordered an immediate probe into it.

Source: PTI