The Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company Limited (MSEDCL) has consistently failed to publish critical information on power outages and technical faults, defying directives from the Maharashtra State Electricity Regulatory Commission (MERC). According to a civic activist, this failure to disclose timely data has left consumers in the dark, literally and figuratively, as MSEDCL disregards regulatory requirements and avoids transparency.
Activist Vivek Velankar highlighted that the last published data is from July 2024, which reveals that Maharashtra witnessed 23,769 power outage incidents, forcing nearly four crore consumers to endure 35,000 hours without electricity from January to July 2024. Meanwhile, Pune reported 1,314 outages, affecting 36 lakh residents who experienced 2,051 hours of power cuts during the same time.
Velankar criticised MSEDCL’s lack of proactive action, stating, “In the past, the company has only published indices after complaints were filed with MERC. Unfortunately, consumers must repeatedly push for something that should be done automatically. The sudden release of backdated data following complaints indicates that the data is already prepared but withheld, to avoid public scrutiny of the company’s inefficiencies.”
Velankar has called on MERC to take strict action against MSEDCL, urging the commission to enforce monthly publication of reliability indices and hold the company accountable for addressing these problems.
Commenting on this, Bharat Pawar, PRO chief, MSEDCL, said, “Collation of information is underway, and it will be published soon. The data collection takes time as we have to collect it from all the centres. We are a big organisation and face many challenges that affect our timeline.”
What are reliability indices?
Reliability indices provide data on the frequency and duration of power outages, showing how well the power distribution network performs.