NEW DELHI, July 31:
In the worst ever power crisis, over half of the country’s population in 21 States went without electricity for several hours today as three major transmission grids failed, bringing Northern, Eastern and North-Eastern regions to a grinding halt. The massive failure came less than 24 hours after the Northern Grid collapsed and was revived yesterday.
Today, the worst sufferers were 265 miners who got trapped in coal mines in West Bengal and Jharkhand due to power outage. They were evacuated after hours of agony.
In the National Capital, thousands of Metro commuters had a harrowing time when the trains stopped inside the tunnels as transmission lines tripped at 1 pm. Railway services too were hit, with 300 trains getting disrupted in seven zones in 10 States.
For the first time, the three inter-state transmission networks—Northern Grid, Eastern Grid and North-Eastern Grid—tripped together. While no official reason was given for the failure, sources said the trouble started in the Eastern Grid.
In its latest update at 8.30 pm, the Power Grid said, the North-Eastern has been completely restored. However, half of Eastern India still remains in dark.
Electricity supply has been restored in close to three-fourth of the areas in the Northern region, including the National Capital, that were severely impacted by power outages since today afternoon.
Seventy per cent or 24,300 MW of power has been restored in the Northern Region, including Delhi, till 1930 hours, Power Grid said in a statement. In Delhi, 100 per cent or 4,100 MW, has resumed.
State-run Power Grid, which manages grids across the country, said that “supply to (Delhi) Metro and Railway traction was restored at 1530 hours”. It said full electricity supply has been restored in the North East.
In the Eastern region, 50 per cent supply has been restored till 2030 hours.
The grid failure and the chaos followed on a day when, in a Cabinet reshuffle, Power Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde was moved to the Home Ministry and Corporate Affairs Minister Veerappa Moily was given the additional charge of power.
The States affected included Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, J&K, West Bengal, Chhattisgarh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha, Sikkim and Assam. Besides 21 States, Union Territory of Chandigarh was also affected.
Blaming overdrawal of power by certain States for the current crisis, Power Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde said, “it is probably for first time three grids are collapsing simultaneously”.
Northern Grid failed for the second consecutive day today while Eastern and North Eastern Grids also collapsed this morning, leaving more than half of the country power less.
Asked about the reasons for the failure of grids, Shinde said some States are drawing electricity over and above their limits. “This was creating problems,” he added.
“This morning only, I was told (by officials) that about 3,000 MW extra power has been over drawn from the Eastern Grid. We have given the direction to either stop it (over drawal) or take action against them,” the Minister said.
The Punjab Government denied the State’s overdrawal from Northern Grid. It said the State’s overdrawal was a meagre 1.2 per cent of its sanctioned load when the grid collapsed, while Haryana’s overdrawal was a whopping 22.4 per cent and that of Uttar Pradesh was 6.4 per cent.
The UP Government said taking into consideration the parameters at the time of grid failure there was no reason to believe power operations by the State triggered the grid collapse.
The denials came after Delhi accused UP, Haryana and Punjab of overdrawing power from the Northern Grid.
Meanwhile, Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi and Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar said the Centre should evolve a system to ensure that no State received more than their quota of electricity for them. (AGENCIES)
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