Mumbai, July 4 -- Under fire over recurring power outages in south Mumbai, the Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport (BEST) undertaking has identified nearly 1,200 locations where underground power cables need immediate repairs, according to officials familiar with the matter. However, fixing these faults would require permission from the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) to dig up concrete roads, a long-pending hurdle that has delayed critical repairs of the utility's decades-old underground cable network. The 1,200 identified locations are in south and central Mumbai, where BEST has 1.05 million electricity consumers. The affected areas include Marine Lines, Girgaon, Bhuleshwar, Kalbadevi, Wadala, Matunga, Bhendi Bazaar, Masjid, Sion, Mahim, Zaveri Bazaar, and Dadar, among others. "We had discussions with the BMC earlier this week to allow us to dig concrete roads, for which permissions have not been provided. Unless that happens, it is difficult to repair the faults," said a BEST official on condition of anonymity. Unlike asphalt roads, concrete roads are more difficult to excavate and require multiple approvals before repair work can begin, officials said. The utility has now again sought permission from the BMC to dig up roads. A BMC official, requesting anonymity, said permissions to excavate concrete roads had been denied because laying them is more difficult than asphalt roads. However, the official added that the civic body had recently granted BEST permission to lay 120 km of extra-high-voltage underground power cables across south Mumbai. BEST officials said that only 3-5-metre stretches would need to be dug at each location to remove damaged cables and lay new ones. "Most of these patches will be parallel to the road network. The work will be carried out in phases and will take at least six to eight months for complete replacement," said another BEST official. The development comes at a time when BEST is facing mounting criticism over repeated power outages that have disrupted large parts of south Mumbai over the past several weeks. Officials said the undertaking plans to spend around Rs.20 crore to overhaul its ageing underground cable network. They attributed the recent spike in outages to an ageing electricity network, rising power demand, successive heatwaves and rapid redevelopment across the city. According to officials, BEST is currently dealing with more than 2,500 unresolved complaints related to underground cable faults and other technical issues. The problem is most severe in south Mumbai's A, B, C, D, and E wards, where a single fuse control room serves around 350,000 electricity consumers. The utility had received 7,500 power-related complaints in 2025, nearly 1,000 more than the previous year. Officials said complaints rose sharply during the summer as electricity demand surged, and have continued into the monsoon, with waterlogging exposing underground cables to technical issues. In several cases, BEST's engineers were forced to divert electricity from nearby substations via alternative cable networks to temporarily restore supply. However, this also increases the load on healthy cables and leaves the original faults unresolved, officials said....