Mumbai: Executive engineer restores power to thousands after six hours

Locals of Mulund are grateful to Dattatray Bhange for his efforts to help them

An executive engineer of Mahavitaran turned into ‘Superman' for thousands of residents of Mulund East, when he single-handedly worked for nearly six hours to restore electricity to them on Wednesday. Mahavitran officials and contract workers were on strike on Wednesday with many other electricity firm staffers all over the state, against privatisation. In the circumstances, Dattatray Bhange himself got to work, detected the broken wires that had caused the power failure, and repaired them alone from around 11 am, restoring power after around 4 pm.

Bhange heads the Mulund Division of the electricity distribution utility Mahavitaran. On Wednesday there was electricity failure at Nanepada, Nilam Nagar and Chintamani at Mulund East. Employees of three state-owned power companies in Maharashtra had declared a strike in the state for three days from Tuesday night. Engineers and senior officers joined the strike. Around 287 staffers from Mulund division were also on strike.

Bhange found digging inside a construction site by a private builder had damaged some wires causing the power failure

Executive Engineer Bhange received a call in the morning about power to 4,000 residents in Mulund East failing. He rushed to the spot to find the fault.

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Speaking to mid-day, Bhange said, "When the strike was to be held, I had a plan in place. I had held a meeting about 10 days ago with municipal corporation officials and told them not to grant permission to anyone to dig roads during these three days of strike in Mulund East. I also told municipal officials to withdraw permission if they had already granted it. The reason was to avoid power cuts in case a wire was damaged during digging. I had also met the deputy police commissioner to get police personnel deployed at all sub-stations for safety to ensure employees don't damage anything."

Power-packed performance

"I have a total staff of 287 and they were all on strike. But 2-4 I was in touch with and who kept guiding me on calls when I repaired the faults. The power failure occurred at Gagangiri sub-station at Mulund East. I reached the spot and repaired two faults, but power was not restored. Then I received information that at a building construction site in an area they had dug up in some places inside, and so some wires were burnt. I rushed to the spot to check. But I needed tools for the repairs, which were at the power sub-station. I went to the sub-station but as the employees were on strike, the door was locked. Then I jumped over the compound wall and entered the sub-station to get all the tools needed to repair the faults. It took me 6 hours to repair the faults and restore power."

The residents of Mulund cannot thank him enough for his heroic actions. Shilpa Baji, a resident of Sachin Society at Mithagar road said, "Yesterday the lights went at 11 am. I was so angry! I was told that Dattatray Bhange was working alone to repair the fault. But I got emotional when I saw Bhange alone on the road working alone for hours for us. Some residents came forward to ask him how they could help him later. He alone restored the power."