Frequent power tripping by the Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company Limited (MSEDCL) at municipal water treatment plants and pumping stations has severely crippled city’s water distribution network, delaying scheduled supplies by four to five hours even after brief outages. Startling official figures obtained by Corporator and Standing Committee Member Abhijeet Jha from the Nagpur Municipal Corporation’s (NMC) Public Health Engineering Department reveal that 112 power-tripping incidents occurred across water installations between June and September 2026.

 

These comprised 30 outages in June, 32 in July, and 25 each in August and September. While electricity is often restored within minutes, restarting high-capacity pumps and rebuilding line pressure across the distribution grid takes several hours, leaving thousands of households without water during scheduled supply windows. The crisis is most acute at the Navegaon Khairi Raw Water Pumping Station, which caters to roughly 65 per cent of Nagpur’s water demand by feeding three treatment plants at Gorewada and one at Godhani. Official records show that Navegaon Khairi alone suffered nearly 24 hours of cumulative power outages over the four-month period -- 7 hours and 48 minutes in June, 1 hour and 27 minutes in July, 5 hours and 45 minutes in August, and 8 hours and 52 minutes in September. Despite its critical role, the station lacks a full-capacity backup power system.

 

Fed by a 29-kilometre-long, 33 kV overhead transmission line from the 132 kV Mansar substation passing through forest terrain, the line frequently trips due to forest-related faults. Its existing back-feeding arrangement can operate no more than two pumps at full load, paralysing normal pumping during main grid failures. Slamming the civic administration and ruling party for prolonged apathy, Jha said, “The people of Nagpur have suffered for years because even a brief power cut delays normal pipeline pressure by four to five hours. The absence of a full-capacity backup power system at a station supplying 65 per cent of the city is an extremely serious lapse. Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, who also holds the Energy portfolio, must convene a joint meeting of MSEDCL, NMC, and Forest Department officials to lay the 29-km forest line underground or build a full-capacity alternative power system under a time-bound plan.” While NMC stated that MSEDCL has initiated upgrades at the Mansar substation and talks are underway to expand backup capacity, authorities have yet to announce a firm deadline for resolving the bottleneck.