Mumbai: Residents across Mumbai’s western suburbs reported frequent and prolonged power outages over the weekend, with Kandivli and Andheri East emerging as flashpoints. Power cuts have been witnessed across the island city and suburbs for the past one week, raising questions over infrastructure readiness and the utilities’ ability to respond.Sources said that parts of Kandivli faced disruption in electricity supply for nearly three hours on Saturday night, and another area in the same suburb faced a five-hour power cut during the wee hours of Sunday. Residents claimed the interruptions have become an almost nightly occurrence for over a week, disrupting sleep, affecting senior citizens and children, and leaving households struggling without fans, lifts and water pumps.Andheri East residents, too, reported recurring outages. A resident of Marol on Sunday told TOI that the problem has persisted for the past two months, with power cuts stretching up to four hours at a time.Another resident from the western suburbs alleged that technicians often provided only temporary connections during visits, with supply failing soon after. “The issue is still not resolved… no permanent respite,” the resident said, describing the cuts as routine.A tweet on X around 3.30am on Sunday stated : “There is no power in Kandivali East area where I stay .. trying to call and contact the customer helpline / centre but nobody is picking up the phone. Kindly help.” Another resident from a different pocket of Kandivli said that after a couple of hours without power, locals went to the nearby power utility office, only to be told that no one could be sent due to “staff shortage”. The outage lasted about five hours, residents said, with several describing a sleepless night.Activist Godfrey Pimenta said Mumbai had not seen such frequent power disruptions in the past and criticised what he called “temporary solutions” that do not address underlying faults. He also pointed to repeated outage alerts being sent “every third day”, with “high tension load in the area” cited as a reason.There was no official word on the latest outages.In recent instances, utilities have attributed disruptions to cable faults, feeder failures and transformer tripping. Residents, however, say the pattern suggests deeper capacity and maintenance gaps, and are demanding accountability, clearer communication and time-bound permanent repairs.
