PATNA, June 13 -- Lakhs of Patnaites suffered prolonged power outage for around 19 hours following a major snag in the 132/33kV Mithapur and its associated Karbhigaiya grids, affecting power supply in areas of central Patna late Wednesday evening, said officials on Thursday. Power supply which was disrupted at the Mithapur grid at around 10.35pm on Wednesday was finally restored at 5.45pm on Thursday through an emergency restoration system, said officials. The gas insulated station at the grid that controls high voltage burst Wednesday late evening, leading to leakage of SF6 (sulfur hexafluoride) gas, which is primarily used in the electricity industry for insulation and arc quenching in high and medium voltage switchgear. This was the first time in the history of power grids in Bihar that such a fault had been reported, said officials. Following the gas leakage, engineers and workmen could not access the grid in the initial two hours of the blast. Later, the South Bihar Power Distribution Company Limited (SBPDCL) diverted 20 MW power each through the Gaighat and Jakkanpur grids on a rotation basis and was able to light up the affected areas of central Patna for a block of 30-minutes by 3am. Energy secretary Manoj Kumar Singh had constituted a high-level inquiry committee led by BSPTCL managing director of the Bihar State Power Transmission Company Limited (BSPTCL) Rahul Kumar to investigate the disruption in the grid substation. Singh, who convened a high-level meeting of officials, gave instructions to issue a show cause notice to the concerned GIS agency for its inability to fix the fault. He also told the concerned officials that strict action will be taken if found guilty in the investigation. After brainstorming, officials of the SBPDCL and the BSPTCL decided to set up the emergency restoration system, which was to erect a temporary tower, bypassing the grid to supply power to the affected area. The fault in the two grids affected at least 13 power sub-stations in Patna, including Karbhigaiya, Karbhigaiya GIS, Ashok Nagar, Patliputra Sports Complex, Yogipur, Kankerbagh, Jaganpura, Ram Krishna Nagar and Ram Krishna Nagar old, Mithapur 1 and 2, Sri Krishna Memorial and Rajendra Nagar. A team from Crompton and Greaves company had arrived from Nashik to fix the fault in the grid that may take around five days, the officials added....