Delhi faces long power cuts

New Delhi: The national capital on Friday reeled under massive power cuts ranging from two to ten hours as a number of major electricity transmission lines tripped due to technical snags. Areas in east, west, and south Delhi were affected as power went off at around 12pm in certain localities in east Delhi and supply could not be restored till 11pm.

Delhi Lt Governor Najeeb Jung said many areas will continue to face planned blackouts for a few more days as repairs to the power towers and lines which were damaged in the storm that hit the city last week are taking time. Power department officials said a number of major transmission lines, including Bawana Circuit 1 and Circuit 2, developed technical snags early in the day, following which supply of power was affected in large parts of the city. Some areas in west and south Delhi did not have power supply for as long as eight hours. The private power distribution companies said load shedding was caused by technical snags in the transmission network which is maintained by Delhi Transco ltd, a Delhi government entity. People had a harrowing time because of the long outages as the temperature rose to record 45 degrees Celsius in the city. "There was no power in our area for the last six hours," said a resident of Khajuri Khas area of east Delhi. The power cuts has affected operations at a number of water treatment plants in the city which resulted in shortage of water in various areas. An official of Delhi Transco Ltd said it will take at least 2-3 days to restore normalcy in power supply in the city. "Before the storm struck, we were generating about 5,000 MW of electricity, which was reduced to 1,000MW (due to the storm). You can imagine what we went through, worried that the entire city will be plunged into darkness. "We are now producing 4,600-4,700MW. The problem is that some big towers and lines fell in the storm and repairing them would take some time. Due to rising temperatures, the demand for power has shot up to 6,000 MW, which we (cannot meet). "So, there could be blackouts for another three to four days to cope with the crisis," Jung said.