The Hindu : New Delhi News : Power cuts again

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, May 20, 2005

New Delhi

New Delhi

Power cuts again

Staff Reporter

Transco struggles to meet shortfall from Northern Grid

NEW DELHI: Several areas of the Capital faced long hours of power cuts almost throughout the day on Thursday as the Delhi Government's power transmission company -- Transco -- struggled to meet the shortfall of power from the Northern Grid.

The crisis began around 10 a.m. when supply to the Northern Grid was curtailed as two units of the Dadri thermal power plant and one unit of Narora atomic power plant, both in Uttar Pradesh, had to be shut down due to technical reasons.

This led to shortfall of nearly 200 MW -- 171 MW from the Dadri plant and 24 MW from the Narora plant -- followed by the problem of low frequency in the Grid. As 70 per cent of Delhi's power requirement is met from external sources through the Grid, any shortfall in supply leads to load-shedding in the city.

As a result, Transco had to resort to load-shedding of around 200 MW from 10 a.m. onwards and this continued almost the entire afternoon. Low frequency in the Northern Grid was another cause for concern as drawing more power to meet the shortfall in requirement could have led to tripping of the Grid.

This further complicated the power situation during the day. It was mostly the theft-prone areas, unauthorised colonies and slums mainly in East, North-East South and Outer Delhi that faced power cuts during the day.

Meanwhile, the Vikas Vihar Residents Welfare Association of Uttam Nagar in South-West Delhi alleged that the private power distribution company -- BSES -- was taking people of the area for granted and not listening to their power problems.

"On Thursday afternoon we faced power cuts for seven hours and despite repeated complaints to the BSES centre at Milap Nagar, no one either gave us the reason for the problem or visited our area," alleged the association secretary, V K Keshav.

All the colonies in the area were without power from 12 noon to 4 p.m. and then again from 5 p.m to 8 p.m. Mr. Keshav claimed that it was only in the evening when the BSES officials were told that area residents were coming to stage a protest that a team arrived at the spot and resumed the supply.

"Unscheduled power cuts have become the order of the day and if something is not done soon, people will have no choice but to come out and protest on the streets," Mr. Keshav warned.

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