Rajasthan govt orders probe into power outage at state BJP office
Jaipur, June 12 (IANS) The Rajasthan government has directed an investigation into the power outage that occurred at the State Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) office in Jaipur on Friday during a media interaction attended by the Union Railways Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw and State Energy Minister Heeralal Nagar.
Taking serious note of the incident, Minister Heeralal Nagar directed officials to conduct a detailed inquiry and emphasised that negligence in essential public services such as electricity supply will not be tolerated.
He said that strict action will be taken against any government official or engineer found responsible for lapses in the power system.
On Friday, Minister Heeralal Nagar sought a comprehensive report from officials of Rajasthan Rajya Vidyut Prasaran Nigam and Jaipur Discom regarding the disruption.
According to preliminary information provided by the power utility officials, the incident occurred on June 11 at around 3:57 p.m. while maintenance work was being carried out to address an SF-6 gas leak in the circuit breaker of the 220 kV Kota Thermal Power Station line at the 400 kV Grid Substation (GSS).
During the process of opening a line isolator, a current imbalance reportedly caused two 250 MVA transformers to trip.
The transformer tripping affected power supply to the 220 kV GSS NPH and 132 kV substations serving Chambal, Vaishali Nagar, Bhankrota, and the Public Works Department Bungalow areas.
Officials said that electricity supply was restored within 10 to 17 minutes by transferring the load to alternate transformers.
Both affected transformers were returned to normal operation by 4:21 p.m. on Thursday.
To investigate the matter, an inquiry committee has been constituted under the chairmanship of the Jaipur Additional Chief Engineer (MPT&S) Dashrath Singh.
The committee includes the Superintending Engineer (Jaipur Rural) and the Assistant Engineer (Protection Engineering) as members.
The panel has been tasked with determining the exact cause of the incident and recommending measures to prevent similar occurrences in the future.
The Rajasthan Energy Minister reiterated the state government’s commitment to ensuring uninterrupted and reliable power supply across the state.
He emphasised that strengthening the power infrastructure remains a priority and that accountability will be fixed if negligence is established during the investigation.
The power outage disrupted a media interaction at the state BJP office, with electricity reportedly failing three times during the event.
Union Railways Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw continued addressing the media during one of the power outages, while attendees used mobile phone flashlights until power was restored.
–IANS
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