Ahead of monsoon, BEST expands call centres, deploys 300 extra staff to tackle power outages | Mumbai News
2 min readMumbaiMay 5, 2026 10:56 PM IST
Ahead of the monsoon, the Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport (BEST) has announced a push to expand its call centre network and deploy additional staff to handle a surge in electricity complaints during heavy rain.
At a BEST committee meeting on Tuesday, chairperson Trushna Vishwasrao said the undertaking will scale up its response system to tackle outages and infrastructure faults.
“The call centre will be set up in three months. Till then, we are deploying people on a temporary basis so complaints are attended immediately,” she said.
At present, BEST runs 11 call centres and plans to expand them across all depots within two to three months. In the interim, around 300 personnel will be deployed to manage complaint calls and coordinate fault response.
The move comes amid criticism over existing gaps. Committee member Nitin Nandgaonkar said the system is understaffed.
“There are six phones but only one person to attend them. The phone is always busy. At 2 am, if the light goes off, no one answers and people don’t know when supply will be restored,” he said. “You need at least three people per phone line. One person cannot manage it,” he added.
Officials said the upgraded system will be decentralised across depots to improve coordination between complaint logging and field teams. Additional manpower is also being deployed for excavation, cable laying and fault repair work during the monsoon.
