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MSEB comes in for praise

Special Correspondent

Power restored to 90-95 p.c. of consumers

MUMBAI: Though Reliance Energy Limited, which provides electricity to parts of suburban Mumbai, came in for criticism by consumers and the Government for failing to restore power after last week's flooding, the Maharashtra State Electricity Board (MSEB) received compliments.

The Board was praised at a hearing conducted by the Maharashtra Electricity Regulatory Commission on Wednesday. The hearing followed complaints about the slow restoration of power by several utilities.

Managing Director, MSEB Holding Co. Ltd., Jayant Kawale told the press on Thursday that it was "a rare experience to hear a consumer organisation complimenting us."

Mr. Kawale said they had restored power to 90-95 per cent of consumers in the affected areas. However, in some places the supply was not stable as the MSEB infrastructure had faced large-scale damage. Twelve transmission towers, about 15-20 metres high, had collapsed and 5,033 poles with high-tension wires and 11,168 poles with low-tension wires had been knocked down. Also, 5,667 transformers and 14 small sub-stations had been damaged.

MSEB's priority was to restore power to drinking water schemes. They concentrated on the 100 KV Mohane substation near Kalyan, which supplies power to water facilities that supply water to Thane, Navi Mumbai, Bhiwandi, Panvel, Kalyan, Ulhasnagar and Ambarnath. Within 24 hours, a temporary power connection was provided and 150 people, including senior technical staff, were summoned from other places to repair the substation, which was submerged.

In Kalamboli, Navy divers were called in to locate the transmission cable, which was under Gadi river.

Only after the cable was located could power supply be resumed.

Load shedding

Sanjay Bhatia, Managing Director, Maharashtra Distribution Co. Ltd., said MSEB had decided to put up transmission towers in the next three or four days.

Normally, the process took15-20 days. Till such time, some places such as Kalyan would experience some load shedding.

On the lessons learnt, Mr. Kawale said there was a need for better communication systems. For the first two days after the calamity, they were not able to reach their engineers in the field. Even their head office was marooned for three days and had no telephones or electricity.

He added that MSEB had sent 220 engineers and other staff to help Reliance Energy repair its damaged transformers.

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