MOSCOW, May 27 (Xinhuanet) -- Russia's lower house of parliament, the State Duma, decided Friday to set up a working group to look into Wednesday's power cut in Moscow hours after it refused to discuss the dismissal of the country's electricity boss Anatoly Chubais.

    Deputy Duma speaker Vladimir Pekhtin will head the group that will be formed by the Duma's security committee and energy, transport and communication committee, Itar-Tass news agency reported.

    The group will assess Chubais' competence as president of electricity monopoly Unified Energy System (UES) and determine hisresponsibility for the power failure.

    The group will also study the consequences of the power outage and appraise the effectiveness of the measures taken by officials and organizations in response to the blackout.

    The State Duma made the decision just hours after it jettisoneda 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.

    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.

    The UES said Friday the Moscow Prosecutor's Office had questioned more officials of the company and its Moscow subsidiary Mosenergo over the power outage that plunged the capital city intochaos Wednesday, Interfax reported.

    The massive power outage began Wednesday when a power failure caused by an explosion and fire at a decades-old substation cascaded 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 UES said worn-out equipment might be to blame for the substation blast.

    Semyon Dragulsky, director of the Russian Energy Efficiency Union, told Itar-Tass Friday Russia needs at least 50 billion US dollars to renovate its outdated energy system, adding Moscow alone needs 30 to 40 billion dollars.

    "The energy networks must be renovated immediately. We have no more than seven years to replace the equipment, 60 percent of which is already obsolete," Dragulsky said.

    Moscow resumed full power supply Thursday afternoon, with the city's public transport system resuming full operation earlier in the morning. Enditem