Russia's lower house of parliament, the State Duma, rejected a proposal Friday to discuss the dismissal of Anatoly Chubais, head of Russia's electricity monopoly Unified Energy System (UES), over Wednesday's massive power cut in Moscow.

In a vote with abstentions by most lawmakers, the State Duma jettisoned a proposal by the Rodina party to discuss an appeal to President Vladimir Putin to call an emergency meeting of UES shareholders and dismiss Chubais as president of the company.

But the State Duma is expected to request the energy, transport and communications committee and the security committee to form a working group to probe into the power failure.

The massive power outage began Wednesday after an explosion and fire at a decades-old substation caused a cascade effect into other parts of the city's power grid. As many as 20,000 people were stranded in the subway and traffic light failures triggered a spate of road accidents and snarled traffic late into the evening.

The shutdown of subways and trolley buses forced tens of thousands commuters to reach their destinations on foot or by flagging down crawling vehicles for rides.

The UES said worn-out equipment might be to blame for the substation blast.

Chubais was questioned late into the night Thursday on the " organizational activities that he oversees" as a witness in a criminal case prosecutors have opened to look into the power failure.

"Given the scale of the power cut, I believe more officials will be summoned by prosecutors," Interfax quoted Trapeznikov as saying.

Sergei Marchenko, spokesman of the Moscow Prosecutor's Office, told reporters Chubais answered all questions prosecutors had for the time being.

Moscow resumed full power supply Thursday afternoon, with the city's public transport system, which was brought to a grinding halt by the power cut, resuming full operation earlier in the morning.

The cost of Wednesday's power outage in Moscow and four nearby regions looked set to run into billions of rubles over lost income and disrupted services, The Moscow Times reported Thursday.

Chubais has said his company was ready to compensate for losses incurred by consumers if such losses are legally proved and that his dismissal will have to be decided by shareholders of the company.

Before prosecutors summoned Chubais to testify, top Russian leaders had taken a swipe at the electricity boss for mismanagement of his company.

"It is entirely possible to talk about a lack of attention on the part of UES to the current activity of the company," Russian President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday in a televised speech.

"They should work not only on global problems about company policy and its restructuring, but also pay attention to its current activity," Putin said.

Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov told a government meeting Thursday he believed the blackout hit the city "largely as a result of the UES' failure to take measures to ensure the dependability of the energy system in the affected regions."

Source: Xinhua