A power outage in the middle of a Union Minister's press briefing in Jaipur has gone well beyond an embarrassing moment — it has now triggered disciplinary action. Rajasthan State Electricity Transmission Corporation Limited (RRVPNL) on Saturday suspended two technical employees with immediate effect for negligence in their duties, while a senior official responsible for overseeing the relevant grid station was handed a chargesheet for serious lapses. The action stems from the grid failure of 11 June 2026 that briefly plunged a large part of Jaipur into darkness.
What actually happened on 11 June
The sequence dates back to 11 June. That day, an important press interaction was scheduled at the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) state headquarters in Jaipur. It was being jointly addressed by Union Railways and Information & Broadcasting Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw and Rajasthan Energy Minister Hiralal Nagar. It was precisely during this session that the power grid suddenly failed, knocking out electricity across the entire BJP headquarters. Notably, even after the lights went out, Vaishnaw did not pause his briefing and continued speaking to journalists in near-total darkness for about 15 minutes. The incident set off alarm among senior officials of the power department.
Action followed the inquiry committee's report
Energy Minister Hiralal Nagar took the outage at such a high-profile event seriously. On his strict instructions, the department set up a high-level three-member inquiry committee to determine the real cause of the grid failure. On Saturday, the committee submitted its detailed report to senior officials. The report pinned the blame on major technical negligence and human error at the 400 KV grid sub-station (GSS) in Hirapura. The transmission utility took its punitive steps on the basis of these findings.
Who faced what action
After being found at fault in the report, Assistant Engineer Vipin Verma, posted at the 400 KV GSS Hirapura, and Electrician Grade-I Babu Singh of the same grid station were suspended with immediate effect. In addition, RP Gupta, the Superintending Engineer for Jaipur city who was responsible for monitoring the entire area, was issued a strong chargesheet by the department.
A transmission network under sustained scrutiny
The crackdown comes at a time when Rajasthan's transmission network has, over the past few months, been repeatedly targeted by both the opposition and the public over recurring disruptions and power cuts. Amid the steady stream of questions, the government has now visibly adopted a tougher stance and moved to fix accountability.
