A senior citizen of a family in Gamdevi survived a death scare on Tuesday when electricity was cut off for 15 hours. The elderly person is on a concentrated oxygen, non-invasive ventilator, which requires uninterrupted power supply to keep the machine working and yet, the Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport (BEST) did not take the family's pleas seriously.
"It all started on Monday morning when electricity was cut at 11 am for three hours. But things got worse from Monday evening," said Gurudutt Kadle, resident of Laburnum Road in Gamdevi, whose mother was on ventilator.
Although residents of Mumbai do not keep inverter as there isn't any load shedding like the rest of Maharashtra, Kadle's did not want to take any chance.
Fortunately, it was the inverter that saved them during the three-hour power cut in the morning. But at 5pm there was power outage again. Then the Kadles' and their neighbours made at least 100 calls to the BEST control room, officials, workers, etc. informing them about the medical emergency involved. "The reply given by Mr Chavan from Lohar Chawl office of BEST made me wild; he said patients toh sabhi jaga rehte hai (there are patients everywhere)," vented Kadle.
Their backup electricity lasted for six hours after which they had to approach people in neighbouring buildings to ask for a power connection so that ventilator and air-conditioning system remain functional.
Some of the officials they approached, informed that they can do whatever is possible within their power but cannot go out of their way to ensure electricity is restored.
"None of the BEST staff gave us a correct picture of what had gone wrong or how long will it take to restore supply. As a result, I was not sure whether I should shift my mother to a hospital or not. It was a traumatic experience," added Kadle.
At 1.15am the electricity came back only to go after an hour. The blackout existed till 9am.
BEST's spokesperson AS Tamboli clarified that electricity had tripped in the area where the road was being dug up and the rains were hindering the workers from working on it.
"This isn't the first monsoon for BEST. Do they always take over 12-15 hours to restore power during every monsoon?" questioned Kadle.
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